Pokémon Alternity
by Pantalion
Summary: After the war devastated Johto, most animals have been wiped out, replaced by bioweapons known as Pokémon. Forbidden to possess weapons, or even defend themselves, "trainers" must utilise mind bending control devices to "tame" Pokémon to fight the wild ones, and each other as professional Pokémon fighting becomes the one remaining sport. A darker look at Pokémon Gold.
1. To Catch a Wild

Jericho pressed his cheek against the glass of the New Bark laboratory, staring at the sacred trinity of pokéballs that nestled on the machine within.

Two years, seven months and fifteen days.

That was how much longer he'd be trapped in this town. If half a dozen ramshackle houses could be called that. That poor Gold boy, no place to stay, no parents to take care of him, or more importantly, to sign the waivers that would have let a minor register as a trainer.

He could have been the next Red.

Hell, he could have been the first Red, he was thirteen when the legend had first started out on his first journey. He could have been approved for Bug Catching for five years by then, could have made his own journey.

Instead, the champion had taken Kanto by storm. Picked out by the renowned Professor Oak as a research assistant, he'd had unlimited capture rights, zero level restrictions... And his own starter, of course. Red became the League Champion, and an enduring symbol for the new peace.

Jericho stared glumly in at the white coated men ambling aimlessly from computer to computer,

By the time he was eighteen and old enough to apply on his own, what would there be left for him? Would there be a hundred and forty species still out there, waiting to be caught?

"Mrrl!"

A dense blue sphere crashed into Jericho, sending him tumbling to the earth. Two shiny black eyes peered down at him as a crooked tail tapped against his chest.

"Hey, Chinami." Jericho scratched the spherical rodent between its ears as he looked around the empty town green for the Marill's owner. "Flying solo today, are we?"

This was Professor Elm's big accomplishment. Lyra's test Marill could moving freely outside of its ball with no restrictions. No need to reach for her pocket, ten times the normal range limit, and not offensively neutered like her Azumarill "companion" pokémon either. Elm said this was going to be the next step in personal defence.

"Stop right there, Pokéthief!" A familiar voice yelled, accusing finger already outstretched as she rounded the corner of the lab.

"Ah! You'll never take me alive!" Jericho hopped to his feet, tucking Chinami under his arm as he backed towards the fence.

Lyra smiled and held out her hand. Chinami at once dissipated into energy and crackled through the air to her waiting pokéball.

"I know you're desperate, Mister Gold, but your method really needs work."

She raised the ball once more, and her Marill zapped back out, growing into a fuzzy blue basketball in a blaze of light.

Jericho winced, blowing on his fingers. "Give me a ball and ten steps in that direction." He waved towards the thick grass that dominated the lone path out of town. "And you'll see all about my method."

Lyra frowned. "You know it's not safe to go out in the long grass without a pokémon."

"You could always lend me Chinami."

"That would work great until you tried to order her to attack something."

"Well, just get me an axe then."

"Jericho!" Lyra's hands flew to her mouth. "That's illegal!"

It certainly was. Weapons, or anything that could feasibly be used as a weapon, were banned by the league as part of the ceasefire. He remembered just after the war, watching his mother struggling to get a trained rattata to cut vegetables because she was no longer allowed a knife.

Jericho sighed.

"Like I could do more with an axe than a freshly evolved gyarados. Except leave."

"That's different. The league makes pokémon safe."

Jericho snorted.

"Anyway... My parents wanted me to invite you to dinner tonight. We're having taillow."

Of course. The Crystals were good people. Like almost everyone in town they liked to help the "less fortunate". A burden they juggled between each other.

"Still trying to tame the wild?" The loathsome sneer in that voice set the hair on Jericho's neck on end as he glanced up over Lyra's shoulder at that crimson mop of hair.

"Troy." Lyra's cheerful face darkened as she replied through gritted teeth.

Troy Silver was not good people. Jericho gripped a fence post to keep himself from flinching as the larger boy loomed over them both.

"Either throw some mud or use a pokéball, that's how you catch a wild." Troy leaned close, the bitterness of his breath hot against Jericho's face.

Jericho gripped the fence post tighter.

"No... Throw a rock instead. Bug types are weak to rock, aren't they?"

"Leave him alone, Troy."

Droplets splashed Jericho's bare leg as a stream of pressurised water spattered off the wall, and Troy pulled away, a dark grin on his face.

"Yes, hide behind your pokémon while you still can, Lyra. Protect the weak little bug."

Troy planted a hand on Jericho's chest and shoved. Jericho winced as he tumbled back into the wooden fence, his skull cracking back into the wood.

"But I'll have a pokémon of my own soon. Then you better watch yourselves."

Troy shoved his way past Lyra, feinting a kick at Chinami as he went. The blue rodent simply ignored him, waiting impassively for orders. She was in battle mode.

Lyra scowled after him before thumbing her belt. Chinami instantly returned to her vibrant self once more, bounding off to investigate a nearby pile of soil.

"Are you alright, Jericho? I hate how he picks on you like that." Lyra took a half step forward before Jericho raised his hand.

"I'm fine, don't worry about it. Weren't you going to go help the professor?"

Lyra raised her eyebrows. "Ah! Yes! I'm late! Sorry, we'll talk in a few minutes! Come on, Chinami!"

Jericho waited until she'd rounded the corner, then slumped to the floor, clutching the back of his head.

This was his life. There were too many orphans after the war, and barely enough people to keep the routes open and, at least comparatively, safe. What little of the two governments had been left in Kanto and Johto had joined under the League, and the only children the league cared about came from eggs. Aside from his pity invites, he survived on berries and apricorns, he slept in the ramshackle hovel that was, at least technically, in his name, even if because nobody had come to tell him otherwise. And he dealt with Silver's malice and Lyra's pity.

It was hard to say which felt worse.

Silver was right, he probably would finally badger his mother into signing his release one of these days and get out of here, gloating as he tried the league, or signed onto a gym and enjoyed a freedom Jericho could only pretend to imagine. He couldn't even swim in the lake or the tentacool would eat him, if the chinchou or shellder didn't try him out as an exciting alternative to magikarp. Pokémon were everywhere, and they were everything, and he hated that with almost as much passion as he craved the freedom they represented.

A pokéball sailed through the air, hitting him in the chest. Jericho glared up at Lyra, who grinned down at him, thumbs hooked through the straps of her coverall.

"... Funny." He stared down at the ball in his lap. Except for highly regulated sporting event balls, Pokéballs were linked to a trainer's license and pokégear. Even if she really gave him one, he had neither. It would have been better if she'd really captured him with it.

And she knew it. Taunting him like this...

Snatching the ball out of his lap Jericho pulled his arm back to throw the ball back at her when he saw something that took the strength out of his arm.

Lyra's grin broadened as she held out the thin laminated rectangle. Jericho's own picture stared back at him with dark rimmed eyes, the word "PROVISIONAL" plastered across his frowning face.

"Is that?" Jericho's jaw dropped as he struggled to his feet, uselessly dusting at the grit on his stained knee-length shorts.

"I asked the Professor, and he said you could maybe head out on a delivery runs with the lab's cyndaquil now and then." Lyra jammed the provisional license into a metallic contraption just like the pokégear on her own wrist and extended it towards him.

"Thank…" Jericho shook his head, staring down at the machine as he flexed his hand into it, straps squeezing tight where they'd been meant for a slimmer wrist.

Lyra's face turned stern. "Now remember, Puck is only meant to keep wilds off you long enough for you to run, he needs to stay low level for lab work on him. And you'll need to go straight to Mister Pokémon at the end of Route 31 and come straight back. And don't-"

"Thank you!" Jericho kissed her soundly on the lips as he ran past, leaping through the air as he held the precious, precious ball in his hands. He crashed through the front door of his home, sending a wave of noise through the stillness of the dilapidated building, its interior gloomy despite the bright morning sun outside.

What to do… Jericho snapped his fingers. He had a pokémon now! And a pokégear! Jericho extended his hand and inserted the pokéball into one of the six slots in the side of his pokégear. Just like he'd seen Lyra do a hundred times before. It shrank to fit effortlessly, the extra mass disappearing using the same alternity compression that pokémon used themselves.

Jericho recoiled in surprise as the dim living room was illuminated by crackling flames that blazed into life behind him. He span to see a massive shrew, over a foot and a half long, the black fur on its back broken by a flickering inferno burning from its very body. It peered up at him through narrowed eyes.

Jericho relaxed and knelt before the curious creature. This was one of Elm's free-roamer test systems. Being in his gear's primary slot must have automatically released the pokémon in roaming mode.

"Hey there." He extended a hand towards the Cyndaquil, which continued to stare as he ran a finger across its creamy brown cheek fur. It felt not quite hot to the touch. "Puck, right? You might not know this, but you're my- well, you're loaned to me, right now."

Puck didn't reply, of course. It just stared at him, waiting for orders. The pokéball integrated with its brain to provide all the intelligence and loyalty software it needed, turning this dangerous creature into a loyal and intelligent servant. But it was still an animal, and adding communication functions to the balls designed to capture and subjugate hostile bioweapons was low priority at best.

"Well, let's get to know you, shall we?" Jericho tapped his pokégear, the lcd screen flashing onto a status readout. "Stubborn and rash, huh?" He stared down at the expressionless creature as it continued to await for input commands. "Well I don't see it, but you better follow orders out there, little guy. I'm not letting you mess this up for me. Let's go."

Roaming activated. The screen on his wrist flashed. Puck ceased to stare at Jericho, instead peering inquisitively about the room, casting long shadows about the room as it moved between worn furniture, nose twitching as it smelled its environment.

Jericho shook his head. He'd apparently had the cyndaquil combat ready, of course it wouldn't be replicating "normal" behaviour. Stupid him. "Hey, careful you don't burn anything, this place would go up like matches."

Puck gave no indication of having heard him, but the flame on its back dimmed a little. Jericho shrugged and headed for a set of cupboards, grabbing clothes carelessly draped across half open drawers and kicking off his shoes for a less worn set he'd had donated to him by the Cobalt's when their son had headed out on his own journey a few years back. They'd been too big for him then, but now they barely wobbled, he could wear an extra pair of-

"You know it's just two routes, right?"

Lyra stood at the door, her face flush in the firelight like she'd been running- oh. Jericho felt his own cheeks heating.

"I… um, yeah, I know. I wasn't planning on doing anything or anything. I just..." Jericho rubbed the back of his head, looking around for a cap to wear rather than meet the gaze of his benefactor.

"Want to get things right?" Lyra finished with a smile. "I trust you. And Professor Elm's a great man, you know that. Just take it easy and stay on the routes, you'll be at Mister Pokémon's and back before you know it. Maybe if you show him you can do a good job on this he'll take you on as a lab assistant, you can take care of testing Puck's roaming software full time."

"Thanks again, Lyra. Really." Jericho pulled a black cap onto his head, the first he'd found, and raised his hand. "Puck, it's time to go."

Puck scurried out from beneath the faded metal oven and scampered up behind him, falling in lockstep as Jericho headed for the door, struggling to get his pokégear'd arm through the strap of his tattered backpack. Lyra stepped out and held the door open for him, sunlight competing with the flames of the cyndaquil through the open door.

Jericho brushed his fingers across a faded photo frame on the wall as he left, a laughing, golden-eyed woman that held a much younger version of himself.

Then he let the door close behind them and raced towards Route 29, leaving Lyra waving and rolling her eyes behind him as he went.


	2. The Old Man's Rod

"Puck! Retreat!"

For the second time, Puck performed a one-eighty turn and scurried towards Jericho, leaping towards his outstretched arms.

This time, the Rattata didn't intercept it in time, and Jericho managed to back safely away from the tiny purple creature. The Rattata scrabbled after the two of them, razor sharp teeth snapping air as it "drove" them away before backing into the matted vegetation of its home, still hissing.

Jericho snorted. It was a fraction the size of Lyra's Marill, he could probably have punted it all the way to New Bark, if there weren't strict laws against humans attacking pokémon.

"You okay, little guy?" Jericho looked down at the Cyndaquil in his arms.

Puck turned its nose away from him and wriggled free, licking at the bite wound on its flank before falling in behind him once more, its flames dim.

"Don't be like that. You know Lyra said we're not allowed to fight anything. Do you need a potion?" Jericho glanced at his wrist, flicking from screen to screen with his fingers. "Hm… Nah, you should be fine, we're almost to Cherrygrove."

Puck turned its head away once more, refusing to look at its temporary trainer even as it plodded sullenly after him. Elm really was a genius, it took most of a companion pokémon's processing power to achieve this degree of sentience, it really was more like communicating with a living, intelligent creature than the purely functional fighting machines everyone else used. Even if that did have the downside of dealing with his headstrong travelling companion's sulking.

Not that it had made the trip any less thrilling. The noon sun was warm, and the air thick with pollen and humidity. Patrolling trainers from Cherrygrove had bidden him hello and shared pointless and repetitive information about things he already knew, probably as much to break the tedium of culling pokémon all day as to educate someone who wasn't even a real trainer.

At least they hadn't been interested in battling. Lyra still told stories about the time she'd gone to Goldenrod and been challenged by a passing six-badge trainer who'd been feeling bored. They'd had to reconstruct her Marill from scratch after the trainer had pulled out a high level Electivire. He wasn't sure what Elm would say if he got the man's research pokémon flattened under some League challenger's steelix.

"See, what did I tell you?" Carefully maintained flower gardens, reeking of repel, nestled either side of the grassy path. Puck blanched and pawed at its snout at the acrid stench.

"Oh stop fussing, we'll be past them in a second." Jericho held a sleeve to his own nose as he hurried past the acrid fields.

"You've finally come to town?" A gravelly voice croaked in Jericho's ear. He started back with a yell.

A crinkled old man stooped near him, hands trembling with age as he spread his arms wide in enthusiastic glee.

"Well let me show you around, Billy!"

Jericho slowly edged away from the elderly gentleman, who matched him step for step, not breaking eye contact until he felt the handle of the pokémon centre behind him and slipped inside.

As soon as the automatic door slid shut before him, the heat and humidity vanished, replaced by cool conditioned air and the soft jingle of restoration machines working.

Jericho turned around, forcing his mouth closed as he looked around the clinic. He'd never actually been inside a pokécentre before, even when he'd managed to talk his way into accompanying Lyra on her shopping runs he'd had to wait outside. Centres were for run by the League for trainers to rest and recover while keeping the routes clear, non-trainers had no business inside, as the dark blue uniformed security guards lounging on the upper balcony looked all too happy to enforce, staring down at him dithering on the crimson welcome mat.

Jericho touched his license for reassurance. He was allowed here. He might not be a full trainer, but this, and the cyndaquil pressing against his leg for space, entitled him to be here.

Jericho edged forward, shoes tapping softly against the pale orange tiles as he crossed a carpet emblazoned with the League symbol to stand before the counter. A middle aged woman with pink hair sat before him, looking down at some papers on her desk.

"License, please." The woman didn't look up, just inclined her pen towards the slot on the desk.

Jericho nodded and complied, pulling the card free of his gear and pushing it into the slot. A chime sounded from below the woman's desk and Jericho heard fingers clattering of a keyboard.

"Alright, are you a boy or a girl?"

Jericho raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

The woman looked up. "You're here for your starter, right? I just need to fill in some information before you can choose which one you'd like."

"What?" Jericho shook his head. "N-no, I have a pokémon, he just needs treatment is all."

He wasn't sure how official his new provisional status was, or what it allowed him, but

getting a starter pokémon when he was barely entitled to use the one he had was the quickest way to lose that, if not get straight out arrested.

The woman's brow furrowed. "Young man, I trust you know it's illegal to capture pokémon without a full license!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Jericho spotted one of the security guards above getting to their feet. "I know! I know!" Jericho raised his hands defensively before stooping to grab Puck from where the Cyndaquil had been snuffling at a potted plant, holding the creature at arm's length above the counter.

"Oh!" The woman's face transformed into a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "What a cute companion you have! And what a nasty bite! I understand. But remember that you shouldn't try to use a companion mon to fight wilds, that's a job for real trainers."

Jericho glanced nervously up at the security guard, who still stood, hand resting on his truncheon as he glared suspiciously down at Jericho.

"I'm sorry, we were trying to run past as quickly as we could. The professor sent me over to Mister Pokémon's, so if you could just-"

"Ah! Professor Elm? Why didn't you say so! You must be one of his little assistants." The woman finally stood, the tag on her uniform reading "Nurse Amy". "Well why don't you pop the little lady inside her ball and I'll get her patched up for you right away."

"Her?" Jericho raised an eyebrow, smarting a bit at the 'little' comment. "Return." The weight vanished from Jericho's arms as Puck disappeared from his hands. He winced at his singed fingertips as he pulled the ball free of his pokégear, extending it towards the Nurse.

"Your pokémon." The nurse nodded as she took the ball from Jericho. He had to fight himself not to snatch it back. "Didn't you know she was a girl?"

"It's my first day."

"It gets easier, dear." The nurse smiled again. This time it reached far enough to crinkle her eyes.

She must have been in her twenties during the war, the fact she could even bare to be around pokémon… Jericho pushed the thought away, watching as she placed the now fist-sized ball into a rejuvenation machine just like the one in Elm's lab.

Dee dee deedle dee!

"Thank you for waiting, we hope to see you again."

"That's it?" Jericho took the ball from the nurse and slipped it back into his pokégear. Puck buzzed into existence once more, and wandered towards the plants once more, nose trembling.

"Of course, it's just a few bytes after all."

"Bites?" Jericho tilted his head.

The nurse sighed, and Jericho felt just a little stupider.

"Doesn't Professor Elm teach you little ones anything? Pokémon in their balls are stored as data, right?"

Jericho nodded cautiously. Alternity physics was about as far above his head as could be.

"Just like the ball handles their mental functions, it records and maintains their physical data as well. What the machine does is rewrite their current health back to its maximum figure. You could use the PC over there to do it yourself if your pokémon haven't fainted."

Jericho nodded. Pokémon "fainting" crashed the ball software. "Couldn't they just program the balls to restore them every time you recalled them?"

"If you don't care about your pokémon not getting stronger you could get a League technician to lock their physical state. Some route trainers do just that."

"I thought level was mental?" Jericho frowned. How did ten year olds head out knowing all the stuff they needed to?

The nurse shook her head, from the sound of it still typing while she looked at him. "Pokémon take up experientia from their ki- wins and store it in the same alternity pocket as they use to fuel their attacks."

Jericho nodded. "So locking their physical state would lock their alternity state as well? Thanks for explaining it."

The door slid open, and one of the trainers from route 30 stepped inside, Rattata dangling limply from his hand by its tail. Jericho took that as his cue to get out of the way, snapping his fingers for Puck to fall in behind as they made for the door. It slid open, a wall of oppressive summer hit him in the face once more.

"-and this is the pokécentre." A familiar voice rasped.

"Ah!" Jericho stumbled back from the old man, stood lurking beside the door.

"This is where you bring sick and and injured pokémon." The man leaned closer, staring at him with a crooked smile, leaning on a gnarled wooden stick that bent under his weight.

"Tha- thank you… for telling me?" Jericho forced a smile of his own.

"And that concludes our tour. Thanks again for visiting, Billy. Why don't you take this old rod? You'll need it for your journey."

Before Jericho could react, the old man thrust his knobbled walking stick into Jericho's hands and hobbled away with surprising agility, rounding one of the buildings in town and vanishing from sight.

Jericho raised his eyebrows as he stared down at the stick in his hands. A piece of string had been crudely fastened to it, with a tiny pokélure at the end.

A makeshift fishing rod.

"Do you want it?" Jericho looked down at Puck, who regarded him gravely, her back flame flickering low. "... Figures."

Jericho checked the clock on his pokégear. He had to be back at Elm's by six and he didn't even know the way to Mister Pokémon's. He didn't have time for this.

Shrugging his backpack off his shoulder, Jericho shoved the rod into its compression port, ready to be retrieved when he saw the mad old codger again. The bag's power supply hummed and a small screen on the side updated its inventory readout with an image of the item.

Hefting his bag once more, Jericho headed for the exit to route 30. Puck whined and pawed at her long snout at they approached.

"Oh just hold your breath this time."


	3. Just a Little Something

"You know, you're pretty heavy for your size."

Jericho panted, grass whipping at his legs as he jogged along, carrying Puck in his arms to stop her from accidentally causing a brushfire. The Cyndaquil stared up at him with her slitlike eyes, then stuck her long tongue out at him.

"Who the heck programmed _that_ feature?"

Jericho had been walking half the day now, dodging past Ledyba nests and ducking angry Taillows.

Walking had a way of sapping the excitement out of things.

Stepped gingerly through another patch of tall grass, Jericho finally settled Puck down, sweating from the hot afternoon sun. Or possibly the font of flame he'd been carrying for the last half mile.

"At least it looks like we're here." A house nestled between the trees, two paths branching off on either side. Jericho peered at his pokégear's map screen, scratching his cheek. "No, hang-"  
An oversized rodent burst from the undergrowth to the left of the house, biting and scratching at a Pidgey in it's grip. The bird slapped the Rattata away with a wing and took to the sky, blood dripping down its plumage.

"Hey! No fair." A young girl scurried after the battling mons, flanked by a youngster even shorter than she was. "Pidglet! Tackle back!"

The Pidgey released a short cry - a pre-programmed command acknowledgement - and dove down into the Rattata talons first, leaving deep gouges down its back.

Jericho winced, though the Rattata didn't, just turned to drive its teeth down through the base of the bird's skull at the urging of the youngster.

"Uh… Excuse me?" Jericho raised a hand, keeping a cautious distance from the carnage. The last thing he wanted was to get pulled into a double battle.

"Whah? Hey! He distracted me!" The girl raised her pokéball and recalled the twitching Pidgey from between the Rattata's bloodsoaked fangs. "We need to do over!"

"No he didn't! You're cheating because you're losing!" The youngster withdrew his own mon with a scowl.

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Excuse me?" Jericho tried again. Two angry glares settled on him. He inched back towards the edge of the long grass. A duel could only work out poorly for him, win or lose. "Sorry to interrupt, I'm looking for Mister Pokémon?"

Their annoyed expressions softened, and the pair pointed up the rightward path.

"Up that way," said the girl.

"Yeah, stay away from that house. The guy in there's lost it. Keeps yelling at people for stealing his apricorns."

"Uh… Okay, thanks! Let's go, Puck." Jericho cast a guilty glance at the apricorn orchard by the house before hurrying along the rightward path. He _was_ rather partial to the green ones.

"Okay, you want a rematch?" The girl asked behind him.

"Only if you admit I won!"

"That does it!"  
Jericho peered back over his shoulder as the pair released their mons, all traces of their recent battle reset. He shook his head and hurried on down the wooded path.

"What do you think, Puck? Think you'd like to be a route trainer's 'mon?"

The Cyndaquil flicked her tongue at him.

"Yeah, I don't think I'd like it much either."

Route trainers performed a vital role in keeping routes open and levels down, especially important in Cherrygrove and New Bark, which didn't have gyms to handle defence. But the idea of being stuck on a single route, fighting wilds day after day, didn't sound much different from his life in New Bark.

Not that it wouldn't have been a huge step up for him this morning, but being a lab tech, with Puck as his, or very nearly his? And getting paid?

Jericho found himself grinning, and with his mind otherwise occupied, he didn't notice the buzzing until it was too late. A foot long brown shape lunged at him from the corner of his eye, swiftly followed by a blazing blur as Puck thrust herself in front. She let out a pained squeak as the barb of the Weedle sank into her side.

"Ah!" Jericho fell over backwards, scrambling back from the venomous insect. "Puck! Retreat! Retreat!"

Thankfully the Weedle didn't make to follow, though it continued to buzz angrily from the brush.

"Hoo boy, that was close." Jericho rubbed the Cyndaquil's head. "You okay?"

Puck's only response was a low whine as she arched her head around to try and stare at the wound in her side. Jericho fumbled with the screen of his pokégear. He didn't have any antidotes. Could he make it back to the centre? Did he have time? And what if-

No status.

"Hah!" Jericho whooped at the top of his lungs, wrapping his arms around Puck's neck. "Ow." He withdrew, blowing on his singed fingers where they'd brushed the font in her back. Puck let out an indignant squeak and turned her considerable nose up at him.

"Oh come on, don't sulk, I'm just happy you're okay. That's not even as bad as the Rattata bite."

Puck stuck her tongue out at him again.

"Fine, be that way." Jericho pushed himself up.

He didn't quite see why Elm felt the need to create an artificial attitude problem. Maybe it was part of the testing?

"Let's go, it's got to be close now. Hopefully we can avoid getting into anymore trouble."

A few more minutes walk brought them out of the grasses and onto the comparative safety of a wide open lawn, with just a hint of repel meeting Jericho's nose as the duo emerged from the trees. A surprisingly humble structure nestled beside a grove of pink apricorn trees.

Finally. Jericho glanced at his pokégear. Not too late. Hopefully there wouldn't be a lot of paperwork inside, but it should be quicker on the way back.

He rapped on the door. A muffled voice came through.

"It's not locked."

"Hi, uh, are you Mister Pokémon?" Jericho pressed the door open, feeling at once the chill of conditioned air as he leaned inside to a room of computers and bookcases.

Two men peered up at him, one in a lab coat, the other in a brown administrative uniform.

"That's us. M.R Pokémon." The admin jabbed a finger to a plaque on the wall.

 _Ministry of Research: Pokémon_

Huh. Well that made more sense than it just being some guy. Jericho stepped inside, Puck pushing against the back of his legs as the door swung shut behind them.

"Usually we're busier, but a lot of our staff are at the Unown excavation nowadays." The admin glanced down at the Cyndaquil. "Ah, is that Puck? I assume you're the boy Elm sent?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Great. ID, please." The admin ran a cursory glance over the card and handed it back. "Alright, I'll prepare the first package, one moment. Professor Oak, would you mind running Puck through the RC while you're here?"

"Of course, of course. I'm eager to see such a rare specimen."

Oak? Jericho looked over to the other man.

Grey-haired, slightly older than the pictures… obviously, it had been three years. The creator of the pokémon classification codex software and leading authority on alternity compression technology. Not to mention one of the most prolific cataloguers of the Pokémon species that survived the war.

Jericho had only been a not-quite research assistant for half a day at this point. Was he going to meet Red next?

Oak waved Jericho over to his desk.

"I-it's an honour, Professor." Jericho pressed Puck's ball and proffering it to the professor with shaking hands.

"Nice to meet you. Jericho, isn't it? Professor Elm said you'd be stopping by with Puck. We're all very interested in his work." He pressed the ball against a port on the computer, tapped a few keys, and handed it back.

A moment later, Puck reappeared in the room, the wound on her side gone. Professor Oak leaned over the Cyndaquil, ruffling the smooth fur under her chin.

"Treat this pokémon with love and care, son. The learning software will be shaped by how you treat it… And with that… ID please?"

Jericho pulled out his ID card again, eyebrow raised. Was he supposed to have changed identity in the last minute?

"Mhm." Oak slid the card into his comptuer and opened the drawer of his desk, withdrawing a metal case. Opening it with a key chained to his wrist, he opened it to reveal five red and white spheres nestled within. Pokéballs.

"Please store these prototypes in your pokégear, they were made to Elm's specifications as requested." Oak withdrew Jericho's ID and handed it back. "They're temporarily registered to you for the transfer, but please don't waste one on the first Pidgey you see like a certain other young gentleman I know." Oak winked.

"I'll be careful, Professor."

"Well, you seem dependable, I'm sure you'll do a fine job." Oak snapped the case shut and stood, pulling a pokéball from his belt with the other hand. "Now I need to be getting back to my offices in Goldenrod. I'll be following your career with interest, young Mister Gold, do get in touch if you find yourself in the area."

With a spryness that belied his greying hair, Professor Oak hurried out of the building. A beating of wings sounded outside the door, and then silence, except for the aircon.

"Sorry to keep you waiting."

The brown suited admin returned, carrying in his hands a foot long egg with triangular red and blue markings across its shell.

"I have to carry that back to New Bark?" There went his plan of vaulting down embankments to save time.

"Well, not carry it, of course. It will be far safer to in one of your pokéballs."

"The only spare balls I have are the ones that Professor Oak gave me, and I'm provisional."

"Ah, no need to worry. Just press your gear against the egg."  
Jericho complied, the egg cracked into energy and the second pokéball on his wrist blinked..

"There we are. It's legally a transfer, so don't worry, you won't get in trouble for it."

"Doesn't this expend the ball?" Jericho looked dubiously down at the flashing orb, swiping the screen of his pokégear to view the status of its new occupant.

"Not at all. The processor mechanisms are transferrable on these balls. You could use the same ball right now to capture a wild." The man raised a bushy eyebrow. "Not that I would recommend you do so, of course."

Jericho let out a low whistle.

"So you can just capture pokémon over and over again with the same ball?"

A normal pokéball was effectively a one shot containment device, attempting to suborn the target wild's own alternity pocket to convert the entire lifeform into storable energy. Once captured, the ball then effectively served as the captured pokémon's higher brain functions, as well as interfering with any future attempts to capture the mon. Only by trading the full dataset to another ball - something that required specialised link cable technology - could ownership and data be transferred.

"Ahh, no." The man in brown shook his head. "It's just the neural processor that's modified, the capture beam is just factory standard."

Jericho nodded. Not an infinite capture ball then, but these balls meant that pokémon could theoretically be transferred freely between them without the usual restrictions. A major advantage for pokémon research, and a major security concern for the League, particularly with some of the larger criminal organisations out there supposedly maintaining their own PC networks. No wonder Professor Oak had them locked up. Was it really okay for someone like him, not even legally an adult, to be transferring vitally important research specimens and high grade lab equipment?

"It goes without saying, but both balls and egg need to be transported to Professor Elm as soon as possible."  
"Of course. I'll get going right now."

Waving farewell to the brown suited man, whose name he still had no idea of, Jericho stepped back out onto route 30, Puck following close behind.

"One look at you tells me many things about you."

"Ah!" Jericho looked up from his screen with a start.

A blonde woman in her twenties stood before him, a smirk growing on her face.

"You're a starting trainer, right?"

She was dressed all in black, including a black fur-trimmed coat, despite the heat. There was something familiar about her he couldn't quite place.

"Oh, um, y-yeah. Kind of."

Behind him, Puck let out a low growl. Jericho raised a hand to silence her, but the woman didn't seem to notice.

"Cynthia Karashina. I've been investigating the old Unown facilities in the region."

No wonder she looked familiar. She was the Sinnoh League's Champion. Jericho swallowed. A League champion could probably flatten half of Cherrygrove from here.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, I'm just here for research." She waved a hand airily. "I'm assuming you're the one that Elm sent?"

Jericho nodded dumbly.

"Those eyes…" Cynthia tapped her lips with a slender finger. "Alright, hold out your pokégear."

Was she after the pokéballs? Or the egg?

Puck started growling again.

"Shh." Jericho raised his arm. This was going to be the quickest, most pathetic failure of his life, and that was saying something, but when a Champion, even a foreign one, said jump, you made like a Spoink.

Besides, they were all registered to his license, it wasn't like she could just take them… Right?

Cynthia reached up, swiped her wrist past his own, and turned away all in a single fluid motion.

"A little gift for you. I'm expecting big things from you, Mister Gold. Do give my regards to Professor Elm if you see him again."

"How did you know my-?"

"Braviary. Fly. Sinjoh Facility." Cynthia raised her hand, and Jericho's question was cut off by the eruption of a massive bird from her palm. Its massive wings kicked up a swirling dust storm as it grabbed the rapidly shrinking trainer in its claws and soared up into the sky, rapidly dwindling to a northbound speck.

Coughing from the dust, Jericho turned his watering eyes back to his pokégear. All six pokéballs were still thankfully in place. His pokégear screen flashed with a single line.

 _Give a nickname to the EEVEE you received?_


	4. Are you happy you won?

_Author's Note: Yes, among other changes to Pokémon availability and movesets, Storm Silver straight up gives you an Eevee on route 30. If someone wants me to put up the rules for the Nuzlocke this story ran from, or mention some of the other changes when they come up, please let me know._

* * *

"Noble. Tackle."

The Eevee lunged forward once more, slamming his weight into what appeared, to all extents and purposes, to be a giant ambulatory acorn with eyes.

This time, the Seedot's tough outer shell cracked from the abuse. Noble let out a triumph yowl before going for the kill, tearing into the flesh of the nut. Flecks of green plant matter spattered his fur.

Jericho's pokégear display flashed into life, displaying the increase in experientia as the little grey vulpine absorbed a portion of the Seedot's dissipating alternity pocket, a bar tracking its progress filled until Noble gaining a level, his vital statistics increasing.

It was a far more gradual purpose in practise, of course, level was simply a benchmark for when the pokémon absorbed enough experientia for a meaningful change to its physiology. But it was Noble's first level, and by proxy, Jericho's.

And his first Pokémon. Not a loan, not something to let travel on a technicality, but a real, breathing pokémon, his from its shiny black nose to the white tuft of its tail. How was it possible for someone's luck to turn so much in a single day? He had no idea how he was going to thank Lyra.

The grey Eevee turned from the shattered Seedot and sauntered through the grass back towards him, regarding him silently with large, intelligent eyes.  
"Good job." Jericho knelt and scratched the thick white fur of Noble collar, careful to avoid the plant juice.

Noble blinked once at him, then settled in alongside, waiting for Jericho to start moving again.

Jericho stood and carried on, with Noble silently padding behind him. He was certainly very different to the moody Puck. Which made sense, though according to the data, Noble was supposedly naughty, and "loved to thrash about", which didn't quite fit the quiet pokémon as far as he could see, though Noble did throw himself into combat with surprising enthusiasm. Was personality ball dependent? He'd have to ask Professor Elm when he got home.

Leaping from a steep embankment, Jericho smelled the telltale scent of repel on the wind. With Puck no longer deployed, he was making far better time than he'd hoped. Maybe he could hit the PokéMart and see if they had anything for Lyra? She liked Bubble brand stationery, right?

He picked up his pace until the town came into sight. Noble let out a soft whine as they approached the flower fields.

"Sorry, bud. You're going to have to get used to it. We'll be be coming this way a lot in future you know."

And they would. With a pokémon of his own he was free. Even if Professor Elm decided he didn't need another research assistant, he could head to Cherrygrove whenever he wanted, hunt for something besides bushes, maybe even make a little money fighting against route trainers.

If he could transfer him.

Jericho frowned. Pokémon related or not, generally the best stuff was reserved for leaguers. A provisional license meant he wasn't authorised to purchase anything except basic essentials. How was he going to explain the need for a pokéball when he wasn't allowed to capture pokémon? He might be able to transfer Noble onto Pokémon Central Storage, but a pokémon in PC storage with no ball to extract it to was a pokémon he couldn't use for the next two and a half years.

Hm. Eevee were usually brown though, weren't they? Trainers didn't often travel through the sleepy town of New Bark, but he'd seen one or two before. Maybe he could talk to the professor, explain the situation and-

Something cracked into his temple, the world turned sideways as the ground rushed up to meet him.

"Looks like I was right. You're a bug after all." A familiar shape rounded the corner of the pokécentre building.

Troy.

Jericho staggered to his feet, clutching his head. Red stickiness coated his fingers.

"Lyra's not around to protect you now, Bug." Troy rolled another pebble in his fingers. "I saw you heading out of town with the fire rat. I knew you were desperate, but stealing pokémon? Tsk."

"I was _borrowing._ " Jericho needed to throw up. Why wouldn't Troy stand _still_?

The red haired boy threw his second rock.

It never landed. Noble leapt up and slapped the stone back to the ground, hissing balefully at Troy. The boy started back in surprise, but only for a moment.

"Stealing a starter, then catching a wild?" He shook his head. "You're going to jail for this, Bug."

"I didn't…" Jericho shook his head. "I didn't catch any wilds. It wassa _gift_."

"Like someone would _give_ a nobody like you anything. But don't worry. I'm going to _take_ it from you anyway." Troy reached into the pocket of his jacket. "Don't you get what I'm saying? Well, I'll show you what I mean!"  
Whipping a pokéball from his shirt, Troy threw it to the ground. A blue bipedal reptile emerged, twice Noble's size and with rows of sharp teeth lining its crocodilian mouth.

Jericho furrowed his brow. The lab's starter Totodile. Had Troy finally managed to get his mother to give him a license? Or had he stolen it to chase him down?

Troy didn't give him time to think about the answer.

"Totodile, attack."  
The blue pokémon's red spines flexed as it settled into a crouch before sprinting forward, foreclaws extended as it made wide, unpractised slashes.

Jericho jabbed at the controls of his pokégear, not trusting himself to use voice commands at the moment. Noble slipped to the side as the Totodile attached, whipping his tail across its snout with a stinging snap. The reptile recoiled with a hiss, and leapt forward again, claws clutching nothing but air as Noble once again slipped to the side, landing another stinging tail slap onto the creature's face before prancing to a safe distance once more.

"Guh, stand still you little mutt! Totodile! Scratch its eyes out!"

"Now, Noble."

The stinging pain of Noble's strikes interfering with its behavioural array, the Totodile charged forward in a blind rage. This time the Eevee lunged not sideways, but forwards, slamming into its stomach. The Totodile let out a pained croak and crumpled forward. Noble darted from beneath it as it tumbled forward and leapt onto its back, jaws clamping down around the reptile's neck, thrashing his head from side to side as he tore into its thick scales.

The Totodile spasmed, shaking from side to side in a failed attempt to dislodge Noble before finally falling still, blood pooling on the grass beneath.

Noble dislodged its fangs from the Totodile and trotted back to stand before Jericho, blood dripping from his chin as he awaited further orders in silence.

Troy's face was purple as snatched his pokéball from the ground beside him and thumbed the manual recall button. The Totodile vanished into the ball, and a red ring flashed up on three of the four quadrants around the ball's alternity emitter. Crashed.

"Humph. Are you happy that you won? That's a pokémon that's too good for a wimp like you."

Jericho flinched backwards as the larger boy stomped forward, fist raised, but Troy let out a howl of pain not even halfway to his intended target as Noble nipped his ankle.

"Noble, no!" Jericho raised his hand to the Eevee.

A card of laminated plastic dropped from Troy's pocket to the floor as he fell backwards, screaming at the top of his lungs as he clutched his leg.

"Help! Pokémon attack! Help!"

They were going to send him Clarity Lake correctional facility.

Jericho snatched Noble up as the Eevee calmly trotted back to him, as though it had just been another attack against another pokémon. He saw pokécentre security rounding the corner, flanked by a pair of orange furred Growlithes. The two canines leapt in front of Troy, barking and gnashing their teeth at Jericho, small flames coming from their mouths with each snap. Jericho scurried back, clutching the struggling Noble tighter as the Eevee tried to wriggle free to face them.

They were going to confiscate the Professor's pokéballs.

"He attacked me! He killed my pokémon and then attacked me!"

Troy still clutched his leg.

They were going to rip up his license.

A security guard grabbed Troy by the shoulders as the second approached Jericho.

"Did you attack the Eevee back?" He shook Troy, raising his voice. "Did you attack it _back_?!"

They were going to kill his Eevee.

"Hey, you!" The second security guard raised a hand. "Stop!"

Jericho was already running. He could feel the heat of the Growlithes baying at his heels, could hear the cries of the security guard close behind.

Fence. He threw himself at it, Noble tucked under one arm. His foot caught on the top of the fence and he rolled forward into the fields of repel tainted flowers, the smell blending with the cotton wool in his head to drive all thought and reason free. Noble threw up down his shirt. Get up. The security guard grabbed at him, half way over the fence. Jericho shoved him, hard, and he fell heavily onto the grass, almost landing on a Growlithe. They stood, barking at the edge of the flower field, unwilling to follow him. Run Away.

He didn't look back.


	5. Back on the Route Again

Morning didn't come easy.

Jericho cracked his eyes open to the sunlight streaming down through the grass, the dull ache in his head throbbing in time with his heart.

He closed them again with a low groan when he remembered where he was. What had happened.

At least nothing had found him. Route 46 used to be a major route between New Bark and the mountainous Blackthorn City, but it had fallen into disuse when the stairs up the side of the cliff had been were destroyed during a battle between a pair of League contenders last year and hadn't yet been repaired. He remembered seeing the flashes of explosions light up the night over the forest all the way from New Bark.

Jericho tried to sit up before noticing Noble curled up on his chest. The Eevee's eyes were closed, his nose snuggled into his bushy tail, chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm.  
"This is all your fault, you know."

Noble started awake, grey eyes wide as he looked around for threats. Seeing nothing, he looked back to Jericho, flicked a long ear and let out a yawn, revealing rows of needle sharp teeth.

"I mean it. You didn't need to bite him." He laid a hand on the Eevee's back and laid his aching head on the floor with a sigh."You ruined everything."

Noble let out a low whine, laying his head on Jericho's chest, ears downturned.

Professor Elm truly was a genius. Was the ball software a perfect emulation, or was it somehow applying the control framework and intelligence software while somehow keeping the underlying behaviours of the animal intact? It was hard to say which was more impressive.

Not that he'd be finding out which it was any time soon. Even if by some miracle those security guards hadn't got his trainer ID, there was no way Elm would want him as a research assistant after he'd managed to screw things up this badly in a single day.  
"Or maybe it's my fault." Jericho stroked Nobles soft fur as he stared up at the sky. "Maybe if I hadn't panicked... If I'd explained things. There's got to be rules about self-defence with pokémon, right?"

Honestly he had no idea. Wilds attacked everything, of course, including each other, and there were rules about intentionally targeting trainers during a battle, and people from attacking a pokémon, ever, but generally it never came up. The League paid very little attention to crimes that didn't involve pokémon. While the old laws still existed in theory, in practise petty crime was rarely pursued if at all by the authorities, and if someone stole something, your best bet was generally to just ask a passing League hopeful to try and get it back.

Jericho's wrist beeped, startling him from his thoughts, and the Eevee from his chest, tail bristling.

"Easy, boy." Jericho rolled to a sitting position, careful not to rustle the grass overhead as he peered at the screen of his pokégear.

 _Voicemail Full._

Huh. The pokégear had a comms function? He'd had no idea. He must have had it set to silent. Jericho poked at the screen until he found the right menu, holding the device up to his ear to listen to a cheerful mechanical voice.

"Welcome to your Sylph Co. Mailbox. You have. Three. Hundred. New messages. To listen to your messages, please hold."

Jericho swallowed drily. This couldn't be good.

"Come on, Noble. We'd better start trying to get back to New Bark."

The Eevee responded by silently falling in behind him, and Jericho poked his head above the grass. A lone trainer wandered through the grass in the distance, whether searching for him or their daily quota of kills was anyone's guess. He ducked down and gave them a wide berth as he headed towards Route 29, voice mail playing in his ear as he went.

"First. New message received. Yesterday. At. Two. Seventeen. P.M." The voice switched from mechanical to familiar, Lyra.

"Hey, Jericho, thought I'd see how you were doing, and make sure you remembered to grab a box lunch at the Pokémart. I guess I must have left the ringer off when I wiped the contact settings. Whatever you do, don't give your contact number to the Rattata Trainer on Route 30. Trust me on this, okay? Bye!"

Jericho clutched his stomach. His last meal had been yesterday morning, his last drink from the pond on Route 30 just outside Cherrygrove yesterday afternoon.

"Second. New message received. Yesterday. At. Three. Oh. One. P.M."

"Hey, Jericho. Guess you still haven't figured out that ring tone, huh? Either that or you're ignoring my calls... jerk. Just kidding! I figure you've already reached Mr Pokémon's by now - if you didn't, you should probably stop picking apricorns and get a move on! Haha. Don't forget what I said about that Trainer, either!"

"Third. New message received. Yesterday. At. Three. Oh. Seven. P.M."

"Listen, Jericho. Troy's on a warpath. He must have seen you leave or something, because he just barged in here with a waiver and walked out with a starter. Be careful, okay?"

Jericho kept walking. The messages blurred together as time went on, growing increasingly more frantic and worried with each passing message, as did he.

"Damnit Jericho, it's six. Where are you?"  
"Pick up your phone!"

"I just got off the phone with Mr Pokémon, tell me you didn't break that egg. You didn't, right?"

"You better be back soon, the Professor's getting worried."  
"Did Troy kill Puck? Is that why you're not here? Call me back."

"I'm getting worried too. I just heard on the news that a pokéthief attacked someone in Cherrygrove. That wasn't you, was it? He didn't take, Puck, right? Oh, Arceus. Just get back here already."

"You better not have come back without telling me!"

"Okay, the Professor just called PokéSec to try and find you. They're on their way."

"ANSWER YOUR PHONE."

"Where the heck did Troy get an Eevee? What the heck were you _thinking_ stealing it? Call me back already!"

Jericho blanched. What had Troy _told_ them after he's run away?

It was still early morning when Jericho approached New Bark, and the messages were still playing, though at this point they had mostly degraded to Lyra slamming the voice receiver down instantly. Noble had gained another level, though he didn't care nearly so much as he had yesterday.

"Two. Hundred. And. Ninety. Third. New message received. Today. At. Six. Oh. Seven. AM."

"Okay, Jericho. Elm talked to the PokéSec guy for you. So long as you give the Eevee back and pass over the Professor's packages, nobody will press charges, and they'll just take your license until you're eighteen, not a lifetime ban. Just get back here. Okay? It was just a stupid mistake, we can talk this whole thing over."

Jericho stopped so suddenly Noble walked into the back of his legs, arm dropping to his side.

New Bark was right there, in the distance he could see someone walking out in front of the lab building, a Pokémon Security officer from the look of his uniform. He could turn himself in. Try to explain. But even Lyra didn't believe in him, how was he supposed to convince the authorities that the _League Champion of Sinnoh_ just randomly gave him, a rookie trainer on a provisional license, a free pokémon? Even he had to admit that it was more believable that he was actually a master hacker..  
And it wasn't as though there were any witnesses on Route 30. He'd intentionally avoided the route trainers, who'd _still_ been fighting. Maybe someone had seen him in passing with Noble, but he'd been mostly in the grass, the Eevee hidden from sight behind him. The first and only person he'd spoken to in the interim had been… Troy.

And if he couldn't convince them, he'd have to give Noble… back? To _Troy_? Not just kill him and wipe his data, but to pass him over to the one who was utterly responsible for ruining his life on every conceivable level? To go back to his life in New Bark while Troy went on a journey. But... not forever, and not disappeared to some Orre penal colony, but to his own home.

Jericho looked down at Noble, who lowered his ears and tail as though he could sense his trainer's thought process.

Or…

He could find Cynthia.

She'd said she'd been researching at the ruined Unown facility, right? That wasn't far past Route 30. While she left for "Sinjoh", which was probably some place in Sinnoh that Jericho had never heard of, the researchers at the Unown facility might know how to get in touch with her.

She could easily prove his innocence, the word of a Champion was as far above some fledgeling trainer like Troy as Troy's word was above some nobody with a provisional. He could get his life back, deliver the package, just a little late, show Lyra that he wasn't a thief, and maybe get Troy sent to Orre himself.

Jericho turned, New Bark once again at his back, the route stretching out into the distance.

He had to try.


	6. You Can Come Home

"This was _such_ a bad idea."

Jericho slopped wetly through the slippery grass of Route 31, streams of water trickling from each side of his hat from the endless deluge that poured down from above, punctuated by the occasional rumble of distant thunder.

Puck struggled along miserably behind him, her fiery font hissing and sputtering beneath the downpour.

She'd levelled five times already.

The first time wasn't his fault. Two route trainers had attacked him as he was trying to sneak out of Route 31, forcing him to deploy both his pokémon to defend himself. Being equipped for mowing Bellsprouts and Budews they hadn't put up much of a fight, but she'd levelled twice from the resultant melée.

After that… well, it just hadn't seemed so important anymore. It wasn't like Puck could go back to factory settings, after all, and while a rare breed herself, she was less noticeable to walk around with than a grey Eevee.

"We're almost there." Jericho called over the rain, more to reassure himself than his struggling companion.

Violet City. According to the map on his gear, Alph village, or what was left of it, was just south from there, and bebeath that, the sprawling underground "Unown" complex. It had apparently been an important facility before the war, though for what he had no idea. He just knew about the strike that had figuratively wiped Alph off the map, and at the same time made the name Violet "City" cruelly ironic.

A Bellsprout, a plantlike creature with a thin "stem" body and "flower bulb" head uprooted itself as he trudged past, attracted by the movement.

"Ember."

Jericho trudged on without slowing as Puck darted toward the Bellsprout, twisted her body and let loose a geyser of flame from her back. The sprout crumpled to the ground as, wet as it was, its stem and head crumpled from the heat.

With a cheerful ding from wrist, Puck levelled again. She seemed slightly less gloomy as she trotted to catch him up. Jericho wished he could say the same, his clothes were completely soaked through. They'd been in the rain since first light this morning, after a cold and miserable night on the floor of the imaginatively named "Dark Cave" that had earned him a sore back and a pair of holes in his leg where a bloodsucking Zubat had bitten him in the night. At least Puck had a break from the rain until Noble had started looking like a drowned Rattata.

And he could just about see the gate building through the rain ahead, coming closer with every step.

He'd been to Violet before, back when his mother had been alive he'd gone to school there once a week, learning the new skills necessary for the changing world they lived in. Where she'd-

Jericho forced his brain off the subject. The present was more than enough to dwell on.

Violet City had a single winding road through town that passed the pokécentre, the school, and the gym before reaching the route to Alph. While the rain would hopefully keep people indoors while moving through the town, the gate was another matter. While the guards there were generally more interested in ensuring that nobody without a pokémon was allowed onto the routes, they were still part of the security team, and if his description had been passed around or, more likely, the description of his pokémon.

Jericho paused at the bottom of the gate's steps, taking a steadying breath.

He was just another trainer heading back to the centre to get out of the rain. He was not interesting. He was not noisy. He did not attract attention. Calm, quiet, steady.

He walked up the steps.

Oh no.

The slap rattled Jericho's teeth and sent him staggering, almost stepping on Puck as he slipped back against the wall.

"L-L-L-Lyra?!"

"What. The. _Hell_ , Jericho." Lyra's face was almost as red as the ribbon on her hat. She was totally dry. Apparently she'd been waiting here for awhile at least. "Have you lost your _mind_?"

She raised her hand again. Jericho flinched, but she only grabbed his chin, roughly twisting his head to the side.

"They said you were bleeding from your head. Did you lose your memory? Did you think you _forget?_ "

"I-I can explain." Jericho's cheek throbbed, and her pincer-like grip on his cheeks was far from gentle. He could see the security guard glancing up at the two of them with interest.

"Do you know how far I stuck my neck out for you?" Lyra pushed him back into the corner of the gatehouse behind the counter opposite the guard on duty. Puck scurried after them, squeaking uncertainly. "Do you know _how many times I called?_ "

"I-"

"Where is it? Show it to me," Lyra hissed.

She released his face to grab his wrist, thumbing the second pokéball at his wrist. Puck crackled back into her ball and Noble emerged from his, staring up at Lyra with mild surprise.

"You really did take it. _Arceus_ , Jericho. Even if it was Troy. Okay. Let's go to the pokécentre. You trade him to me, I'll go give it back, and you can come home."

"Noble is _mine_. I didn't take him off Troy."

Lyra stared at him. "Oh Arceus. You captured him?! How many times did you hit your head? And you used one of the professor's balls?"  
"No! Someone gave him to me."

Lyra kept staring. "Someone just _gave_ you an Eevee. Are you seriously expecting anyone to believe that?"

Jericho shook his head helplessly. "No I'm not. But it's true! She gave it to me when I left Mister Pokémon's. I knew nobody would believe me, so I was heading to find her so she could prove I didn't steal or capture him."

"I'm not sure _I_ believe you." Lyra glanced down at Noble, who was growling softly, eyes not leaving her.

Jericho knelt down, placing a hand on the Eevee's back and forcing his raised hackles down.

"Come on, Lyra. You've known me forever. Do you really think I'm a pokéthief?"

Lyra glared down at him for a long moment, her arms folded.

"... No." She pressed her palm against her face. "Just an _idiot_."

She knelt down. "So where's the person who gave him to you now?"

"Last I saw her she was flying to some place called Sinjoh, but she said she was at Alph before."

"The Sinjoh ruins? So it was a researcher with Mister Pokémon?"  
"Uh… Something like that." Jericho rubbed the back of his head. "She said she was here researching the ruins. I figured someone might be able to get in touch with her, and she could straighten everything out."

Lyra stared at him in silence for a long, long time.

"Fine. I never saw you. Get to Alph, ask for Foster. He might be able to help you get in touch with this woman of yours. The second you find her, turn yourself in and then get back to New Bark. You're not on a Journey, you're not challenging the League. You're coming home and you're _grovelling_ to Professor Elm and your super cute friend who you do not deserve for the next year."

"... Thank you, Lyra."

"Shut up and come home soon." Lyra stood, spun on her heel and walked out of the gatehouse the way he'd come in.

Switching back to Puck before he came back from around the counter, Jericho pulled his cap down as he passed the security guard.

"You've got a real keeper there, Son." The guard scratched his stubbled chin, flashing Jericho a knowing smile. "You got to learn to treat her better though."

"Um… Thanks for the advice." Jericho mumbled sheepishly, pulling his hat further down and scurrying on past into the rain once more.

* * *

Though Violet had once been a city, it certainly didn't show. Thick forest had reclaimed a good portion of the town, their branches carefully pruned to create a tightly interwoven barrier of living wood around the town, intended to keep wild pokémon from wandering into the town, bark bleached grey from liberal application of Repel.

Water streamed off the traditional sloped rooftops, forming deep puddles that Jericho gave a wide berth as he walked, running shoes squelching unpleasantly with each step. There was the pokécentre. Keep walking. Head down, shoulders up. Squelch. Squelch. Squelch.

The school. Who was the teacher again? Mister Dervish? Didn't matter, He was never going there again. He wasn't ten, and he had noone to pay his tuition anyway. Spelch. Squelch. Squelch. Lightning arced across the sky, silhouetting the vast pagoda the locals called Sprout Tower across Violet Lake to the north, the largest surviving building in Violet. Jericho paid it little attention. He'd never been up there, but apparently it was some kind of religious centre. Squelch. Squelch. Gym. SquelchSquelchSquelchSquelch. Puck had to break into a run to keep up.

Finally, the exit on Route 32 came into view, and Jericho soon found himself past the city once more, home free. The turn to Alph was right-

"Stop right there!"

"Gah!" Jericho clutched his sodden chest as an enormous man clad in green waterproofs stomped towards him from beneath one of the trees at the side of the path.

"Sorry, pal, didn't mean to scare ya!" The bearded man let out a booming belly laugh. "ID please?"

"Am… I in some sort of trouble?" He was doomed. He was doomed. He was doomed.

"Naw! I gotta check everybody!" The man produced a handheld scanner and swiped it over Jericho's outstretched, shaking, hand without looking at it.

The scanner buzzed. Jericho's heart pounded louder than the thunder. Could he make a run for it? If he got a head start maybe-  
"Sorry pal, you're going to need to get signed off at the pokécentre before you can head on out of town."

"... What." Jericho looked wistfully over the man's shoulder, to where the Alph gatehouse was just a few dozen metres away.

"Yeah, kick in the teeth ain't it? League says there's some major crime situation down south they're looking into, so everyone's gotta sign in. Security, ya know?"

Inside his head, Jericho screamed a thousand times, but managed a polite smile. "So I just have to get them to scan my card?"

"Yeah, just hand it to the joy at the counter. Shouldn't take more'n a minute."

Mind racing, Jericho glanced around where the man had come from.

"Do you mind if I… uh…" He jerked his head to the patch of grass near where the man had stood.

"Hah! You kids are all the same." The man loosed another rumbling laugh. "Knock yaself out, just don't try to sneak by, I got eyes in the back of my head, don't ya know!" He pulled his hood lower over his face and stomped back to his tree.

Fingering the pokéballs at his wrist, Jericho strode into the grass.


	7. One Worth Raising

The Pokécentre lobby was crowded with over dozen different trainers, all taking shelter from the rain that streamed down the windows, blurring the outside world into a dull kaleidoscope of grey, green and brown.

Jericho stood dripping at the entrance, shivering at the addition of cold, conditioned air to his existing predicament of not being able to get wetter if he'd swum across Violet Lake to get here. Two security guards on the upper level, these ones bearing badges marking them as members of the local gym, glanced down at the newcomer with bored indifference before looking away once more.

That suited Jericho just fine. If he hadn't already been drenched he would have been dripping with nervous sweat anyway.

"Let's go, Numlock," he muttered with chattering teeth.

The cyclopic sphere of metal that was his companion let out a single confirmatory buzz before drifting after him, using the rotating magnets on either side of its body to remain upright as it made a mockery of gravity.

As far as Jericho was aware, while Magnemites looked robotic, they were actually silicon-based, with a thick metallic shell protecting all but its single glassy eyeball.

He had no idea about why the magnets looked like traditional horseshoe magnets, or why their poles were coloured red and blue, but considering that many of the pokémon were originally designed by people, before new species began to appear after the war, the original designers probably had a reason to make it look the way it did. Even if that way was sort stupid.

He was breaking so many laws right now just by having it.

Well, technically he was also resisting arrest, wanted on three different counts of stealing from a pokélab, one false count of stealing from a jerk, and one possible count of assault, but illegal capture on a provisional license was arguably worse than the lot of them. The League didn't much care what licensed trainers caught - it wasn't like there was any real shortage of pokémon in the wild, after all, but poaching was clamped down on very hard indeed. Ultimately the last thing the League wanted was competition, and groups acting without League oversight could easily turn into another division. It was a common rumour that even criminal gangs operated with licenses and followed League rules, since the sentence for idiots like him was so much more severe it simply wasn't worth it.

But… well… Desperate times, and all that. PokéSec were looking for a Cyndaquil and a grey Eevee, and from the route guard's scanner, they didn't have his ID number on file, so he'd grabbed the first pokémon he'd seen on the route. Walk in, get registered, walk out, and format the ball when he found Cynthia, claiming absolute ignorance as to why the capture circuit wasn't one of the balls, if it ever came up. Which may not be for months, since he sincerely doubted that pokémon labs needed to worry about catching wilds for their experiments.

"Alright, fam." A man with mousy brown hair sidled up to him, fidgetting nervously. "You got any Bellsprout? I'll trade you an Onix for it."

"Onix?" Jericho halted his advance to the counter. Not seeming too desperate could help. Maybe. "The thirty foot rock snake?"

"Yeah, yeah. You feel me, fam? Straight up rock snake, guaranteed."

"For a Bellsprout." Jericho held his hands two feet apart from one another.

"Yeah, yeah, that's it fam. You feel me?" The man's head twitched violently to the side.

"And you were going to fight with it? Or…?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't let the size fool you, fam. Bellsprouts is wicked strong. They gots them in that tower, yeah? They tore my Onix a new one! So I figures you can't beat them you gots to joins them!"

"You... do realise that wild ones just one route over, right? Why not just capture one?"

"No can do, fam. Provisional, yeah? Can't catch if you're provisional, they'll do you big time. And I gots to beat the Sprouts before I can go full."  
Jericho winced. "Well good luck finding one, I'll let you know if I, uh, catch any."

He retreated from the twitchy individuals loud, and repeated, affirmations and headed for the counter, shaking his head. The man wasn't likely to progress past a provisional license if he didn't understand typing.

From what Jericho knew, most pokémon had a "type" that was in some way abnormal, which represented itself either in the pokémon's physiology or in the way it interacted with alternity energy states. The massive Onix, despite being only slightly denser than pumice, was a dual-type "Rock and Ground" type, making it impervious to electrical attacks and resistant to raw physical force, but its porous physiology had a crippling weakness to the Bellsprout's vines or the phase of alternity energy it wielded.

This theoretically extended to people as well, but while he'd seen a few psychic-type humans on TV managing to use telekinesis to lift small objects like pokéballs sometimes as far as a few inches at a time, and fighting types who'd embraced their nature to become powerful martial artists - a dying vocation nowadays considering the law against attacking pokémon - the vast majority of people had no alternity pocket at all, and no particular abilities as a result.

Which was a shame, since he could certainly do with a bug's power of being pathetically small and uninteresting right now.

"License, please." The grey haired nurse glanced momentarily up at him over her half-frame spectacles before looking back to her work with a slight sneer.

Jericho complied, pulling the card free of his gear with a shaking hand and pushing it into the slot. A chime sounded from below the woman's desk and Jericho heard fingers clattering of a keyboard.

"Are you a boy or a girl?"

A horrible blend of deja vu and terror gripped Jericho by the bladder.

"Boy. But I-"

"Can you confirm your home town?"

Oh sweet Arceus, he was dead.

"N-N-New B-Bark."

The woman's sneer deepened. Jericho heard more clattering on her keyboard.

"Please select your pokémon."

A monitor display on the counter flashed into life, showing three cartoonish renditions of Pokémon - the system was designed with ten year olds in mind, after all. A smiling orange lizard with a flame at the end of its tail, a vaguely frog-like quadruped with a flower bulb on its back, and a surfing turtle wearing triangular sunglasses.

Jericho knew all of them by heart. These were the same pokémon Red himself had started out with. Jericho had seen more of these undeveloped forms than the mature pokémon they had grown into. Presumably because they were more marketable.

The nurse cleared her throat, wordlessly. Jericho's panic deepened.

If he didn't pick a pokémon, then just like last time he was going to have to explain that he already had a pokémon, and that wasn't going to work out well.

If he picked a pokémon, he'd be breaking yet another law, and one that he couldn't just format away. Unless they already knew about him, and this was entrapment to catch him red handed, then he might get away with it initially, but while the League's bureaucracy might be piecemeal, sooner or later someone would presumably pick up on the fact that he'd received a second starter.

Or… had he?

Puck wasn't a starter, was she? She was technically a loan. A damaged loan, which he had no right to be holding onto, but a loan nonetheless. He would, very theoretically, be doing nothing wrong. Or at least more wrong.

He pressed the turtle on the screen, then a second time to confirm before he could change his mind.

"Congratulations, you have selected Squirtle, the water pokémon. A world of dreams and adventures with Pokémon awaits." After the least enthusiastic rendition of spoken language ever committed in the history of mankindthe nurse struck a single key, hard. "Your new friend can be downloaded on the PC to your right. You'll need to take it to Sprout Tower to finalise your license registration."

"Can I get my license authorised to leave town while I'm here?"

"At. Sprout. Tower." The nurse didn't look up again.

"Oh. Okay. Thank you very much." Jericho retrieved his license and scurried away from her scorn towards the PC.

"Hey, kid. Wait!"

Jericho froze, slowly turning to look back at the nurse.

"Ask your parents to get you a new pokémon. Companion or not, that Magnemite is going to kill you in this weather."

"O-okay, I will. Thank you again." Jericho forced a smile and ducked behind the PC, pressing his gear against the control interface. The screen flashed into life.

 _Give a nickname to the Squirtle you received?_


	8. Not Weapons of War

"Noble, bite."

Noble leapt forward, fangs blazing with dark energy as he closed them around the nebulous creature, tearing into flesh that was normally incorporeal to physical touch and pulling away, a mouthful of dissipating ectoplasm dripping from his mouth. The Gastly faded with a horrid moan, its face the last thing to disappear.

"Good job. Return." Jericho stole a glance around the floor of the tower, once again making sure that nobody was there to see as the Eevee was replaced by Puck. Noble was far behind the rest of the rest of his pokémon in level thanks to the risk of using the distinctive creature where they might be seen.

But he did need to get stronger, just like the rest of his team. According to the monk officials working the building - after he beat their pokémon into submission at least - he could actually get his provisional license authenticated if he won a sanctioned test match against the head monk - some quirk of the local town ordinances - and that meant fighting his way up the tower first. Whether the monks running Sprout Tower intentionally allowed pokémon to roam the building as part of its function as a trainer testing facility, or the building was so large and so old that they simply couldn't afford to clear out the infestation, it seemed he couldn't get more than a few steps before some fresh horror skittered from the gloom, including a dozen Bellsprouts so far.

If he could get properly licensed, he could buy some pokéballs of his own and catch one. Maybe two, to trade one to the Onix guy. He wouldn't attract any attention at the pokécentre either, just another trainer going about his business.

" _REEEEE!"_ Another Gastly descended from the darkness of the ceiling far above, the face on its spherical black body contorted into a menacing grimace surrounded by toxic vapours.

Jericho rolled his eyes. "Ghost" or not, it was hard to find a smokey basketball particularly intimidating, even for him. With a flick of his wrist, Puck went in for the kill, her font erupting with flame as the Gastly flew towards it. The ghost erupted in a blaze of light.

A moment later, so did Puck. Jericho glanced at his gear in surprise. That time already? Blinding waves of alternity poured from her tiny body. Most pokémon could "evolve" into new forms as they accrued experientia, using the material stored in their alternity pocket to provide fuel, and typically mass, for the transformation. Puck's translucent body shimmered and stretched beyond recognition, almost doubling in size. Jericho was forced to tilt his hat down to shield his eyes as the glow grew ever brighter before fading away as quickly as it came. He lifted his hat to stare at the creature Puck had become. Her body, once squat and rounded, was now slender, almost three feet long, with the same black and cream colouring as the Cyndaquil she had once been. The font on her back had moved further back to become a tail of sorts, and a second had formed at the top of her head.

Puck regarded him with dull red eyes that had once been narrow slits and yawned with a weasel-like jaw far removed from the shrew's snout it had once been.

"You look _amazing_ , Puck." Jericho didn't even have to crouch down to rub the warm fur beneath her chin. "I… Guess you're definitely not going back to the lab now you're a Quilava though."

Puck snorted and turned away, presenting a flaming obstacle to further interaction.

"Sorry." Jericho frowned and pulled away. It seemed like either the animal or the AI operating it had little time for him. Which was understandable, he supposed, pulling her from a peaceful life into the current state of constant battling and injury. "Let's just get going."

Not quite an hour later, Jericho stood on the top floor of Sprout Tower. Numlock, his go-to pokémon for keeping a low profile, bobbed along behind him. A pair of black robed monks glanced up at him with solemn disinterest before going back to mopping the blood stained floor. Jericho loitered quietly, waiting for them to finish. Apparently there had already been a fight in here just recently. Finally, the monks completed their task, bowed to one another, bowed towards something around the corner, at the other end of the room, and waved him in.

The main chamber was sparsely decorated, and laid out with the same traditional, high ceilinged construction of the rest of the tower. Through a large open window that dominated much of the far wall he could see the storm still raging outside, the wind straining to window shutters lashed open with thick lengths of rope.

At the centre of the room, an elderly monk sat cross-legged beside a PC system, out of place compared to the rest of the room. Seeing Jericho walk in, the elder pulled a string of pokémon balls strung together like prayer beads from the machine, raising his other hand in greeting.  
"So good of you to come here! Sprout Tower is a place of training, and I am the final test. Are you ready?"

"I… Guess so. Can I get my license authorised to leave town either way?"

"Of course, though they really should do that at the pokécentre. It will just take a few forms, you can fill them in afterwards." He pointed to a small door at the side of the room. "Bear in mind though, you'll still be under provisional licence restrictions unless you pass the test."

"Then I'm ready." Jericho raised his pokégear and stood on a circular mat opposite the elder, seemingly intended for such a purpose. Numlock buzzed and hovered forward.

"Om Tare." The elder flicked a poké-bead between his fingers. A Bellsprout crackled into being on the combat floor.

They sure did love Bellsprouts. Jericho tapped commands into his pokégear, and Numlock surged forward, smashing into the flower. The Bellsprout flopped over backwards, its roots stopping it from losing its balance entirely, and snapped forward once more, using its full weight to lash Numlock with its vines with a metallic ring that did little damage to the Magnemite's metallic frame.

The result of this particular battle was all but assured. While grass types were resistant to the Magnemite's electrical attacks, the sturdy pokémon was perfectly capable of simply using brute force against the flower, and its steel body was well defended against anything the Bellsprout might dish out in return. But official battles weren't about individual bouts, they were about maintaining momentum, and keeping the opponent on the back foot where possible. There was nothing to guarantee that the monk wouldn't switch to a better suited pokémon given the chance.

Jericho directed Numlock to attack again, but this time the Bellsprout was ready for it, wrapping its sinuous body around the Magnemite's body and constricting with all its strength. Jericho hurriedly tapped in the command once more, and the Magnemite flew upwards, signs of stress appearing on its chassis before dive bombing into the floor, crushing the Bellsprout's head between it and the mat. Numlock flew unsteadily up to its regular altitude, purple sap dripping from its frame.

"Tuttare." The monk flicked another bead. The pulverised remains of the Bellsprout dissipated, and a metallic golden sphere with two long multicoloured orange and white tufts growing from its top appeared with a melodious ring. It landed on the mat and sprouted four tiny balls from its golden surface, which served as arms and legs. A Chingling, a psychic type with an appearance designed around a bell for some reason. A metallic pink aura crackled from its outstretched arm-balls, forming in the air above it.

"Thundershock!" While calling out attacks in a battle with a trainer seemed like poor strategy, Jericho didn't trust himself to hit the command quickly enough to preempt the bell pokémon's attack.

Numlock buzzed in acknowledgement, or just from the crackling electricity sparking between its magnets. A crackling bolt of lightning arced across the room and into the Chingling, striking it directly between its hollow black eyes. A lucky shot. The Chingling tumbled backwards, smoke billowing from its open mouth.

"Ture."

A Hoothoot crackled onto the arena, a spherical pseudo-owl with a single taloned foot and black feathers around its orange eyes that gave it a perpetual scowl.

A flying type! Numlock had been a fantastically lucky catch it seemed. The Magnemite loosed another thundershock, catching the Hoothoot on a stubby wing as it flapped off the ground. Sparks crackled between its feathers, but it stayed aloft, eyes blazing with alternity. A bolt of crackling psychic type energy slammed into Numlock, sending it spinning through the air, sparks flying from it like a dynamo.

Okay, not a normal flying type then. Jericho glanced at his gear. Though sturdy, Numlock had dropped to yellow status, and apparently the psychic blast had scrambled its brain to boot. The Magnemite span aimlessly through the air, tackling nothing before slamming itself into the wall at top speed. The Hoothoot chased after, pecking at Numlock's metallic shell with its beak. Low yellow, almost red. Whatever damage it was taking inside that metal shell, it was starting to get dangerous.

Jericho gritted his teeth. If he recalled Numlock and switched in Puck, she would appear in the same spot and take whatever attack had been intended for Numlock, potentially scrambling her too. If he stuck it out with Numlock… He thumbed the command on his gear. It should be able to survive another hit, and might even-

Success. The careening Magnemite reversed its course, slamming straight into the beak of the Hoothoot chasing it with a sickening crunch. The Hoothoot slid off Numlock's chassis with a wet thump, leaving a red smear with the drying purple.

Was that it? Had he won? Jericho could scarcely believe it. The sturdy little 'mite had just downed three pokémon! He was going to-

"Soha."

Damnit.

A giant cherry crackled into life. Jericho raised an eyebrow. Two heads joined by a stem, one shrunken and vestigial, but both featuring the same placid, dopey smile. A Cherubi. Placid and not inherently much more dangerous than one might expect from a fruit, Cherubi were typically cultivated for food, their vestigial head being torn off by trained pokémon and allowed to regrow, over and over. As another grass type it wouldn't have been particularly threatening to Numlock.

But why was the monk smiling?

"Return!" Jericho raised his hand, recalling Numlock just as the Cherubi began to glow white. Puck dropped to the floor from where the Magnemite had been, glancing around for the threat just as the Cherubi exploded into blinding light. Jericho's world went white as he turned his head too late.

"Puck! Ember," he yelled, clutching his eyes.

He heard the crackle of flame, and then nothing. By the time his vision had returned, the Cherubi has already been recalled, leaving only a greasy soot smear against the tatami floor. Puck stood pawing at her snout as though to scrape away the damage the blinding flash had done to her eyes. Jericho squinted around but saw no further pokémon.

"Ah, excellent!" The monk's smile had broadened, and he beckoned Jericho forward. "The way you battle is quite elegant, the most entertaining battle I've had today."

"Thank you, sir." Jericho swelled with pride. He really had done it. His first official League match, if only a license test, and he'd passed. "If you don't mind, what was that attack at the end?"

"Hm? Oh, flash? It's used to be used for lighting up the old tunnel networks. I use it to teach the younger children taking the tests a lesson."  
"What lesson is that?" Jericho rubbed his eyes again. He would have appreciated a different lesson.

"That pokémon are not tools of war. The ones made for the war were created sterile, so what we have running around nowadays are generally either old utility models, or new, naturally occurring mutations." The monk tapped his nose. "Either way, it pays to think how to use the tools you have available and not get wrapped up in using just the most obvious way to proceed, especially when you start getting ready to start facing gyms."

"That _is_ a good lesson," Jericho mused. He was a long, long way off from ever trying to face a gym though.

"Hm. Tell you what, why don't you pass me your Magnemite? I'll fix it up while I do mine."

"Must be convenient to have a PC right there." Jericho passed the ball over. Better to act nonchalant than guilty.

"Sure is. I wouldn't want to have to walk all the way to the pokécentre after every testee showed up." The monk slotted his prayer bead pokéballs into the slots of the PC, each bore the three quarter ring around the power symbol showing that the ball software had crashed.

 _Dee dee deedle de!_

He handed the pokéball back and shouldered his beads.

"Tell you what, why don't you take one of these as well?" The monk reached into the drawer of the computer desk and pulled out a series of coloured stones, laying them beside the PC. "A memento of your successful qualification."

"Wow, thanks a lot. You sure?"

"Of course. The League passed out a bunch of these to officials so they could evolve their teams. Obviously not much use to us here handling license testing, so I just hand them out to trainers."

Jericho pondered over the stones and selected a hunk of green tinted ore that looked almost like the surface was made of moss.

"Thanks again. So… I just head over there?" He motioned his head towards the door in the corner.

"That's right. The last boy to take the test is still in there right now, but you should be able to fill out some of the paperwork while you're waiting, there's a chair in there."

"Come on, Puck."

Jericho almost flew across the room, an elated grin on his face. He was going to be a fully licensed trainer, he was going to get out of town, he was going to find Cynthia and-

The door swung open as he got there. Jericho's grin died as he came face to face with the red headed boy coming out.

Troy Silver.


	9. Clipped Wings

"This is all just a misunderstanding!" Jericho backed away from a trio of pokémon, kept at bay by their trainers only temporarily by the blaze emanating from Puck's hind quarters.

Troy had already run for the exit, a nasty plot no doubt on his mind as he screamed for security, leaving Jericho cornered by the two monks and the elder.

"Why not just come quietly then, son?" The elder wasn't smiling now, his Cherubi stood between two Bellsprout. "You can explain everything when the gym leader gets here. Falkner's a reasonable man, he'll listen to what you have to say."  
"I… " Jericho faltered. He certainly didn't have much hope of escaping. There were half a dozen more monks down the tower floors, and by the time he made it through them Falkner's flying team would have surrounded the building. Maybe if he could explain to the monks first, he could-

Did the elder's hand just move?

Jericho jerked his head forward as the Cherubi exploded into light. Even with the bill of his hat in the way, spots still danced across his vision.

The Bellsprouts were already slithering forward when he looked back up. Jericho glanced to either side. No way out, and if he tried to run he'd probably slip up on the rain-soaked floor.

The window!

"Puck! Return! Noble! Bite the rope!"

Noble didn't pause for a moment as he appeared where the blinded Quilava had been stood, doubling over himself and sprinting between Jericho's legs as he ran.

The Eevee lept, jaws first into the rope binding one of the large window shutters, severing it cleanly with a flash of dark.

Jericho grabbed it as one end tumbled free, hesitating for a moment as he reached the window, staring out at the stormy evening outside.

Time to do something stupid.

He swung out onto the sloped tiles of the roof, gripped the rope tight between his hands and leapt off the roof of the hundred foot tall pagoda.

He regretted it almost instantly. The sensation of uncontrolled descent was quickly replaced by a searing pain as the rope slid through his fingers, swinging him out past the roof. He could see the stone steps dizzyingly far below, though growing rapidly closer.

The rope swung back. Jericho slammed into the side of the tower with a boom that echoed through his skull, and he slammed into the second roof, tiles cracking beneath him from the impact.

Jericho heaved in a shuddering breath as he clung to the broken stone, struggling to right himself. The rock the monk had given him tumbled from his pocket, clattering down the wet tiles as it fell. Jericho grabbed at it with a bloody hand but missed. Whatever, he had more important things to-

A moment later, Noble dropped to the roof with a pained yelp, claws scrabbling for purchase as he scampered after the rock.

"Noble! No!"

The Eevee snatched the stone his jaws triumphantly, but momentum carried him on down the slope even as he turned, leaving shallow grooves in the roof as he tried and failed to find purchase on the rain drenched ceramic.

Jericho pushed forward, one hand loosely holding the rope as he extended a hand.

Noble fell.

So did he.

Jericho's hand found a fistful of fur and he clenched tight. They both yelped in pain as Noble yanked against his wrist, dangling from his fingers by his thick collar of fur. Jericho could feel the severed end of the rope in his hand.

Jericho gritted his teeth and dropped Noble, reached up and slapping a pokéball at his wrist. He seriously hoped he'd remembered where he'd stored it. Red light flashed from his wrist as the rope started to swing back towards the building.

His hand slid off the bottom of the rope. A second later Jericho slammed shoulder first into the wall, sliding down to the roof below. The slick tiles offered no support, and his feet slipped sideways, his bare calves scraped across the surface as the edge came up to meet him.

His foot smacked into something solid. Jericho used the lifeline to lunge upwards and to the side, grabbing the corner of the roof and swinging his leg up onto the wider corner tiles, gripping with his knees. A dented Magnemite followed him with an indignant buzz.

"Sorry, Numlock… Thanks." Jericho cautiously reached up to the flap of his backpack. Hopefully it hadn't been damaged from the impact. Or the last few hours of rain. "Potion. One."

A smooth ampoule popped up from the compression port into his waiting hand. "Here you go."

For want of a mouth, he smashed the ampoule on Numlock's side. It didn't really matter. The concentrated liquid inside didn't need to be consumed to do its job. Light flickered around Numlock as it absorbed and metabolised the substance, and the dent disappeared before Jericho's eyes, leaving it unblemished, if still sparking furiously in the rain.

"Okay, now we just need to-" Lightning flashed across the sky. Jericho twisted around as best he could to look at two dark shapes approaching from above.

Gym flyers. Two Pidgies from their outlines, it was hard to

"Numlock, shock 'em down." Jericho leaned over as far as he dared, staring at the ground below.

No good. He was still easily twenty feet up. He'd probably break a leg, even if he hit the dirt. Above he saw Numlock's lightning strike true, arcing from one bird to the other in the wet rain. Both splashed into the lake. He could see their trainers running across the bridge, cages outstretched as they shouted something incoherent through the pounding rain.

Hopefully they'd be preoccupied enough trying to get close enough to recall their Pidgies to buy him some time.

"Numlock. Fly up and break the rope." Jericho hugged the roof with one arm as he flailed at his backpack with the other. The pain was starting to pierce through the haze of adrenaline now. "Old Man's Rod!"

The pole erupted from his backpack and into Jericho's waiting grasp. A moment later he heard the localised thunder clap of Numlock's electrical strike above.

Now.

Jericho swung the rod at arm's length as the rope fell, almost sending himself flying back off the roof with the motion. The fishing line was rated for catching a hundred pound Tentacool, it should probably be able to hold a piece of rope.

Jericho felt the rod connect in the dark. The rope folded around the wood, slapping into the roof…

And slid off. He heard it splash to the floor a moment later.

Jericho swore.

Idiot jumped off building to avoid arrest. Got stuck on the roof. Had to be rescued by the people arresting him.

Yeah, that was to be _fantastic_. Jericho swore again. Numlock buzzed by his ear.

"Not your fault." Jericho stole a look at the two gym trainers. A third figure in a blue outfit had joined them, and was apparently using his own pokémon to fight off a Polywhirl that was trying to drag one of the dead Pidgies further into the lake. He wasn't sure if they knew where he was, exactly, in the dark, but it wouldn't take a flyer more than a moment to spot him once they got airborne again which, given the state of the Polywhirl, wasn't going to take very long.

Jericho sighed and pulled the rod back in. He may as well put it away, it wasn't like he could fish the rope up now. The string was barely five or six feet long.

Jericho paused, staring at the rod.

 _He_ was only about hundred and twenty-five pounds.

It wasn't easy getting the pokélure to hook around a roof tile, but with Numlock providing as much support as it could, Jericho managed to set up a hurried knot and push off, dangling over the side of the building with his arms, then letting go to grasp the rod with both hands as he fell.

The rod creaked dangerously as Jericho's weight yanked down on it, but held, as did Jericho, barely. His hands slid halfway down the pole and it took all his strength just to hold on, even with the long suffering Numlock pushing up on his feet the whole time.

Finally his descent slowed. Jericho gritted his teeth until they hurt as his hands approached the end of the stick.

This was about as good as he was going to get. The ground was still well over six feet below his feet, but if he took his time and was careful…

"There he is!"

For the love of Arceus. A Doduo, a flightless sprinting bird with two heads, pounded up the path towards him.

"Numlock! Go get i- Whoah!" Jericho swung crazily in the air as the Magnemite rushed off, crackling lightning arcing wildly through the rain. The Doduo's twin heads were linked by crackling static and it tripped over its own feet, slamming hard into the wooden bridge and scraping to a halt.

The gym trainer in blue recalled it and deployed a Pidgeotto, the larger, evolved form of the Pidgies the other two trainers had been using.

"I'm Falkner, the Violet Pokémon Gym leader!" The man yelled. "I won't allow you to walk free! Surrender before I show you the real power of the magnificent bird Pokémon!"

His Pidgeotto dove into the ground, slapping the ground with its wings to send a spray of alternity infused mud into Numlock, leaving a deep gouge in its chassis. Ground type attacks were effective against _both_ the Magnemite's types.

"Numlock! Keep shocking!" Jericho yelled over the rain.

Sparks crackling from the hole in its side, Numlock released another bolt of electricity into the Pidgeotto. Falkner switched it before the bird's sizzling corpse could even hit the floor, a parrot-like bird with a head and crest like a quaver musical note. Jericho tried to twist around to get a better view.

That was too much for his tenuous perch. He barely had time to register the sound of the tile above dislodging before he dropped, squelching into the mud below, toppling sideways and forwards to land painfully on top of the rope. His face splattered into the wet earth. A moment later a tile sliced corner first into the ground in front of his nose, burying itself inches deep into the dirt. Jericho pulled away with a groan, dropping the rod and weakly jabbing his wrist.

"Pu…" The taste of dirt and blood filled his mouth. Jericho broke off coughing, clutching his aching ribs.

It seemed she understood what he wanted to say anyway. A geyser of concentrated flame burst through the air, raindrops hissing into steam as it washed over the rapidly moving bird. The parrot… Chatot? didn't retaliate, but alternity pulsed over its feathers, and it accelerated ever faster through the air, becoming a blur as it repeated the trick, flying through another Ember so quickly it barely singed its feathers.

"Shrillex! Drop the bass!" Falkner span away, clutching his ears as the Chatot dropped to the ground in front of Puck, beak wide. Jericho barely had time to do the same before it shrieked.

He might as well not have bothered. The guttural sound penetrated through his skull directly and drilled through his brain and out through his teeth. Jericho writhed in the mud, unable to hear his own scream.

And then it was over. Jericho forced his head up to see Puck, blood trickling from her eyes and ears, slumped before the Chatot, its head replaced by a smouldering stump.

"Oh for pity's sake! Just _stay down_." Falkner stepped off the bridge, raising another pokéball from his belt. A duck-like Farfetch'd emerged, swinging a green plant between featherlike fingers. Or fingerlike feathers? Jericho shook his head to clear it and heaved unsteadily into a kneeling position. Pain blossomed up his leg as he put weight on it. Farfetch'd were particularly deadly combatants, and Puck could barely keep upright.

"Potion." He snatched the ampoule from the top of his bag and threw, badly as the Farfetch'd lunged forward, swinging its reed like a blade.

Puck leapt up, snapping the potion out of the air as the reed sliced into her body. She crumbled around the strike, fonts sending out a cloud of thick smoke that hung heavy around her. The bird swung again, shaking its head violently to try and disperse the thick smog, but Puck slipped aside, slamming her body into the duck from behind, pinning it to the floor with her paws on its wings. Jericho turned away as she pressed her blazing head against the Farfetch'd's own. Frenzied quacking and the faint smell of roast duck carried over the rain.

He looked back as he heard the distinctive sound of a pokéball deploying. The replacement was a swablu, its cottony wings easily slipped from beneath Puck's paws and it slammed upwards, knocking the injured Quilava over backwards. She landed into a wide puddle that extended across the foot of the bridge. Falkner took the opportunity to move forward, the two gym trainers at his side. They splashed closer. Probably looking rush him before he could call up another pokémon when Puck fell.

The Swablu soared up in the air. Jericho fumbled with his pokégear. The screen was barely readable through red smudges from his fingers, but he didn't need it to know Puck couldn't take another hit like that. His finger hovered over the controls as the Swablu finished its ascent and dove, round body hurtling like a shooting star.

Now.

The Swablu struck face first, though not into flesh but rather the outstretched magnetic prong of Numlock. There was a thundercrack as it created a circuit between the two poles even as it bent them with the impact. The Swablu skidded into the puddle below, sending up a spray of water as Numlock spun unsteadily above.

Falkner was already reaching for another pokémon. How many did he even _have_? Noble was no where near the level of the gym leader's pokémon, and he hadn't wanted to even release his starter until getting his license upgraded. If only the software recognised dead pokémon were valid targets he could have Numlock shock the Swablu as it switched, frying it on entry rather than risking a confrontation

Wait. There _was_ one valid target.

Jericho pressed his command as Falkner recalled the Swablu. Numlock buzzed its confusion.

"Do it!"

A Murkrow flashed into life where the Swablu's corpse had lay, spreading its black feathers wide.

The Magnemite dropped into the water, metallic prongs crackling as it struck itself with its own thundershock.

The effect was immediate. The Murkrow dropped as quickly as it had risen, and a moment later so did the trainers, dropping to the floor as the shock carried across the puddle and into them.

"Fa...ther..." Falkner fell silent, face dropping limply into the much.

Jericho blinked dully, rain pouring down his face. Numlock rose from the puddle, smoking and crackling but alive.

He had won.


	10. Refuse the Outside World

Jericho awoke on cold stone, sharp pebbles pressing into his face where he'd rolled off his backpack. His dream, dark and terrible, rapidly faded from his memory as the aches and pains of the waking world, never quite absent even in sleep, reasserted themselves with a vengeance.

Still not dead then.

However much he felt like it.

Jericho forced his eyes open to the stone cavern that had been his temporary home for three days now. Runes carved into the stone walls glowed with an eerie light, and large stone statues of people and pokémon alike scattered about the halls in various poses, few of them pleasant.

He wasn't quite sure where he was, having taken off down the heavily forested Route 36 with more attention paid to evading his followers than his map. He may somehow have managed to wander off-route, which would explain why he hadn't been followed, though not how he was still alive.

Whether it was some weird crypt or built by some pokémon enthusiast with more money than sense, the cavern was completely devoid of any wild pokémon, which was unusual. Usually a cavern like this would be infested with Zubats, if not lithovorous pokémon like Onix munching on the statues. A perfect place for a fugitive from justice to have a secret base.

An upside down golden face popped into his vision with a curious yowl. Jericho smiled half-heartedly.

"Morning, Noble." He raised a hand to press on the pokémon's cheek. "Yes, I'm awake."

Noble trotted around him, green tail flicking with anticipation.

He'd vaguely remembered that Eevees had unusual evolutions, but apparently the green ore the elder had given him had been triggered this one as Noble had apparently absorbed it into his alternity pocket to facilitate a change to a new Grass type while inside his pokéball. The first time he'd seen Noble's new form he'd almost jumped out of his own skin in surprise - something his aching ribs hadn't much appreciated.

Noble pranced back to him again, nudging his hand insistently.

"Alright, alright, I'm moving. Keep your leaves on."

It was still disconcerting. While Puck's evolution had left her larger, stronger, and more deadly, she'd not changed nearly so far from her original appearance. Three times the size of the Eevee he'd once been, gone was the grey fur and furry collar, replaced by a vibrant golden coat flecked with soft green tufts that looked more like blades of grass than fur. Even his long pointed ears and once-fluffy tail were now leaflike in appearance, and in the tail's case, surprisingly thin and sharp.

Jericho groaned as he sat up, clinging to the tail of a vast stone beast that loomed perpetually ready to pounce on a terrified stone human.

"See? I'm up. I'm up. We can do this."

Jericho stood, leaning heavily on his old rod as he limped after the Leafeon down the long winding corridor. He left his backpack where it was, he wouldn't need it, and the weight made his chest hurt. Noble led the way at a sedate pace before finally stopping before the steps to the surface, staring at him with unblinking focus.

"I don't know if your little schedule is helping or killing me." Jericho grumbled. The lumpy, uneven steps looked more like they had been poured out of molten lava than carved.

Noble just stared at him. The Leafeon, or the software simulating its personality, was mercilessly inconsiderate to the fact that Jericho couldn't fix himself with a few seconds and a potion. He didn't even have bandages.

Step by step, Noble on one side, rod on the other, Jericho finally reached the top, sitting on the top step to rest his aching ribs.

"Alright, go on." Jericho gestured towards the gaping opening. "I'll be out in a minute."

Noble flicked a leafy ear and sauntered out into the sunshine, turned in a circle three times and settled down onto the dusty ground, ears and tail angled towards the sun.

Finally, when the pain in Jericho's chest had receded to a dull ache, he hobbled out himself, leaning back against Noble as he cast his line into the pond that lay across from the cave entrance.

This was their routine now. Sit in this wasteland of full of misshapen caves and fallen rubble, all, like the stairs, molten and misshapen in appearance, and fish up a Magikarp or a Remoraid to eat - the only wilds he'd seen in this desolate place. He wasn't actually sure if tame pokémon needed to eat, or if hunger was just another byte to fix at the pokécentre, but they seemed happy enough to devour anything he put in front of them. Training them against Magikarp was a nice safe way to bring the rest of his team up to speed with Numlock and Puck as well.

The only downside was that it left him with a lot of time to think.

Jericho settled back further, head resting against Noble's cool shank. The Leafeon laid his leafy tail across Jericho's head, shielding his eyes from the sun.

"Things just don't seem to go our way, do they?"

Noble mewed inquisitively.

"Well, I guess you don't care, but if they catch us they're going to give you to Troy."

Jericho frowned. He assumed they weren't going to be keeping him in the Professor's prototype ball. Would that be like dying or a lobotomy? Or would the software not care either way and just go back to emulating whatever new pokémon inhabited the ball?

Jericho gritted his teeth. How many times had Troy Silver made his life a living hell at this point? Twice a week since he was born? At least Lyra wasn't there to feel sorry for him this time.

Oh, Arceus. Lyra.

A fugitive on the run busting out of Sprout Tower and beating a Gym Leader was probably going to be in the news, even if the news mostly concerned wild pokémon concentrations nowadays. There was no way Lyra hadn't picked up on it. Who knew what she thought now. She was probably leaving messages for him even now. Not that he could check them. His pokégear hadn't worked since he'd bounced off a hundred foot tall tower a few times.

A tugging on the rod between his knees interrupted his misery.

"Alright, show time."

* * *

Jericho sighed again, lifting the Magikarp - crudely wedged on the end of his fishing rod - away from Puck's back with both hands. He blew on it before taking a bite, spitting out a stray orange scale he hadn't managed to scrape off against a statue. It was rubbery and tasteless, but he hadn't gutted a twenty pound fish by hand not to eat it.

He didn't know what he expected it to taste like. He could call up vague images of a scene, himself and his father, sat by New Bark Lake, with fish, real fish, caught and cooked without having to subdue it in mortal combat, but like the details of his father's face, the flavour of the fish was impressionistic at best. A memory of a memory.

Just like fish themselves, he supposed. They'd been wiped out along with the rest of the animals. Tiny insects were the only "normal" animals around now, and Jericho wasn't sure if they weren't just pokémon too small to build up a decent alternity pocket and start breathing fire or something.

"You want some?" He broke off a piece and held it up to Puck. She peered at it a moment before snatching it and scurrying away behind a statue, casting the occasional suspicious glance at him as she nibbled at it.

"I _gave_ it to you. I'm not going to steal it." Jericho rolled his eyes.

He wasn't even sure if tame pokémon had to eat. They clearly weren't _just_ data in the pokéball, since things like poison still worked, so presumably the same applied to hunger, but tame pokémon generally only came out of their balls to fight or use their abilities, so "hunger" could be just another byte to refresh at the pokécentre, or just ignored by the software operating their thought processes.

Like it mattered anyway. At this point his only friends were computers programmed to, if not like him, then be incapable of leaving him. He may as well treat them nicely.

It was pathetic, but this was actually a step up for him.

Finally, his stomach full of bad meat and the remains devoured by his voracious pokémon, Jericho fell back, closed his eyes against the ever present glow of the heiroglyphs on the walls, and once again waited for sleep to take him.

* * *

Jericho's eyes snapped awake, crushing pressure behind his eyes as he once more fled from a horrifying dream. Something about… white?

Jericho touched a finger to his upper lip, a splash of red on his fingertip… Noble's face filled his vision.

"Okay, okay. I'm up."

He was having trouble remembering how long he'd been there at this point. Four? Five days?

He climbed the shapeless stair without much more than a twinge in his ankle, a light drizzle pattered against the dirt floor beyond the cave. Noble slunk back to him, leafy tail between his legs.

"Sorry, buddy. Not much sun today, huh? I'll see if Nauti wants to play instead."

Jericho thumbed the pokéball, and the sullen canine was replaced by a perpetually smiling blue skinned tortoise-like creature half his size. Nautical the Squirtle peered out into the rain, tilting her head listening for sounds.

"It's fine, go on."

Jericho walked slowly after the splashing reptile, taking time not to slip and fall into the mud as he settled beside the pond.

Sooner or later, once his leg was better, he needed to leave. To try and find some landmark, try and get back to the routes. To find…

Jericho rubbed his fingertips against his eyes, hoping to somehow massage the brain within.

Cynthia?

He needed to find Cynthia. She could tell everyone that he hadn't stolen Noble. She could tell everyone that he was innocent. That was it. All just a misunderstanding. Everything just a big mistake.

As soon as this headache cleared up.

Jericho became dimly aware of the rod in his hands tugging against him.

"Nautical, you're up."

The Squirtle scampered to the side of the pond, ready to tackle the fish as it emerged.

A sinuous tail slammed into her from the water, sending Nautical spinning across the wet earth. Sliding from the water a slender blue serpent, as long as Jericho was tall, reared up, its winglike white ears spreading wide in a hissing threat display.

A Dratini, a dragon type, resistant to… Well, actually pretty much everything he had available to throw at it, except raw brute force.

Nautical's spinning brown shell the Dratini, knocking it back into the water, but the dragon pokémon's tail yanked the Squirtle in after it. Jericho stumbled forward, seeing Nautical thrashing to keep afloat as the Dratini tightened its coils.

Jericho thumbed his pokégear. Numlock would be able to handle the crushing pressure better than Nautical, and resistant or not, shocking the water might make the Dratini release its grip.

Nothing happened. Nautical momentarily flickered red, but the Dratini's scales shimmered and the Squirtle solidified once more. Apparently it was disrupting the ball function with its own alternity pocket.

"Nautical! Struggle and break free!"

The Dratini's coils grew ever tighter, hairline cracks formed along Nautical's shell. Bubbles came up from beneath the surface as she cried out. Jericho flailed for a potion and found nothing, he'd left his bag downstairs again. He could do nothing while the Dratini crushed the life out of her.

Wait. He couldn't recall Nautical, but maybe…

Jericho plucked a pokéball from his wrist and threw. The ball hummed through the air, smacking into the Dratini's long flank. A red beam zapped forth, there was a brief cry of dismay as the ball's capture beam forcibly turned the Dratini's alternity pocket inside out, and it disappeared inside, power light on the pokéball blinking red a few times before flashing green to indicate successful capture. The pokéball bobbed atop the surface of the water.

"Nautical!" Jericho lunged forth, dragging the limp pokémon from the water and laying it on the earth. Pink tinted water poured from her mouth. Jericho gritted his teeth, peering at her status on his screen. She had to be fine, right?

She opened a bloodshot eye, her health status stabilised at low red.

Jericho breathed a sigh of relief. Pokémon physiology was extremely robust. If an injury wasn't immediately fatal it generally meant that it wasn't going to be. Things had gone his way for once.

"Alright, we'll get you a potion when we get back." Jericho stretched out over the water with the end of his fishing rod, pulling it back to him. He'd thrown Nautical's ball to catch the Dratini.

 _Give a nickname to the captured Dratini?_

Jericho sighed and tapped in his choice, shuffling the dragon to a spare ball before bringing Noble out in Nautical's place.

"Alright, let's try this again." He hefted his fishing rod.

That was the routine, after all.

His head hurt.


	11. Braving the Unown

Jericho opened his eyes. Solid stone met his gaze, unusually devoid of the glowing glyphs.

He wasn't laying down?

Jericho rubbed his eyes, smearing stickiness down his face. He stared down at his bloody hands as though they belonged to someone else.

Perhaps they did? They struck at the stone wall, adding bloody marks to ones already there, streaks of red trailing down the wall. He felt nothing. He heard… Flute music?

He had to get inside.

Jericho glanced up. A narrow hole was up there, just out of reach. He might fit.

He _would_ fit.

Jericho's hands reached for his backpack, he felt his lips move, but heard nothing over the melody in his skull. He wanted, helplessly complicit, as his hands tied the rope he'd escaped from Sprout Tower with to the centre of his fishing rod. He threw with unfeeling accuracy, the rod flying like a javelin through the opening above.

Something pulled at his leg, but he kicked free, hauling the rope back until the rod wedged across the opening, bending as he climbed, hand over hand, foot over foot.

The hieroglyphics were watching him.

He could _feel_ them.

Hand over hand, foot over foot. He clambered through the hole, landing feet first on the ground on the other side.

His hands… Hurt?

Jericho shook his head as the music faded from his mind.

He'd come in here.

He'd _needed_ to come in here, like a drowning man needed air. Barren stone walls with the ever present glowing glyphs, a few chests, looking almost like modern foot lockers, but crafted out of stone, and at far end of the chamber, a stone… screen?

There was no other word to describe it. The smooth reflective surface was displaying a Kabutops, one of the earliest designed pokémon strains, wiped out early on in the war. Jericho found himself already before it, hand resting lightly against it. Words flashed up on the screen.

 _Unown System Offline._

 _Reinitialising._

The stone wall he'd climbed over before ground open, neatly severing the rope and sending his fishing rod clattering to the ground. Noble scrambled through the opening before it was knee high, grabbing the rod in his jaws almost as an afterthought before skidding to a half before Jericho.

Jericho peered around in confusion. Unown system? Was this...?

Noble let out a low growl, hackles raising as he pressed against Jericho's leg.

The cave flickered, taking on an otherworldly, dreamlike quality. Steel superimposed itself over stone, the symbols animated into blue and green pokémon of the same shape, their single eyes all transfixed on him, even as ghostly figures walked through and around him.

" _Kants inbound!"_ A woman in her early twenties with a hand over her ear shouted over the spectral din.

" _That's ridiculous! How did they even find this facility?"_ The deep voice hummed from just above and behind Jericho's forehead.

" _Surviving scouts report positive sighting, Sir! It's flying with their alpha wing."_

" _Damnit, all hands to the armoury! Get word to Violet to send out Walker's flyer squadron!"_

The images faded, the symbols on the walls shattered, releasing glyph pokémon from within, crackling alternity of every type crackling around their eyes. Jericho dove aside as a series of beams blasted the console behind him, sending a mixture of stone and glass tinkling across the hard ground.

"Noble!" Jericho thumbed his pokégear, switching to dual deployment mode. Nautical buzzed out alongside the Leafeon. Fire crackled against her thick shell and she retaliated in kind, sending a narrow stream of high pressure water tearing into the attacker like a knife. It's disintegrating carcass was replaced by two more.

"We've gotta move! Break on through."

Noble charged ahead. With his dark infused bite he tore a path through the swarming glyphs while the slower Nautical paced alongside Jericho, sniping anything that got close to Jericho with her pressurised water spray, and occasionally intersecting her sturdy hide between Jericho and incoming attacks.

In the corridor, people with guns - actual _guns_ , even the police were only permitted soft batons - were trading fire with pokémon. Two soldiers with the rainbow flag of Kanto on their arms sprayed bullets into the belly of a Charizard, which incinerated one with a roar of flame before collapsing on the ground and vanishing, replaced by a mound of stone.

Glyphs flew through the fading image of the soldiers, blasting beams of energy. Jericho threw himself to the floor, sparks of every type crackling overhead. The impact sent an agonising jolt through his torso. Noble leapt in front of him, energy exploding against his side before being answered by a salvo of razor sharp leaf fragments hurled from his tail.

Jericho prodded more commands into his gear, and the Leafeon pulsed with light, the injury from the blast healing in moments.

" _We've got to keep moving!"_ A burly figure stamped through Jericho's head as he ran, a flag bearing the three trees of Kanto on his uniform.

Jericho forced himself to his feet. How far was the exit to this cave? He didn't recognise the statues, so it must be deeper than he'd explored before today.

When _was_ today? He glanced at the date on his gear between the waves of combat. The numbers on the cracked display had converted to numerals the same style as the glyph pokémon.

Seemed fine, unless misread the numerals, it was Friday. He'd last checked the date on Wednesday? Day before yesterday? How long had he been down here? His leg was a little tender, but not painful. How long had the… routine been going on?

Jericho shook his head. It was hard enough directing two pokémon already, he could think later.

And his weren't the only battles. All around him, humans and pokémon of both sides were engaged in mortal combat. A bullet zipped through Noble's head and into an amorphous Grimer, doing no damage to either of them. His pokégear flashed time and again informing him that one or the other had gained a level from the carnage. Nautical blazed with the light of evolution, doubling in size and growing long furry ears and fur on her tail to match. Jericho kept walking, switching her for Puck when her health started dropping too low from the constant attrition from the weak yet innumerable hordes of glyphs.

" _Hold the line!"_

Bullets cut down a flock of bird pokémon.

" _Kill the Unown!"_

A red-eyed Kanto soldier sliced a glyph in two with a sword. Jericho blinked in confusion. Hadn't that one just shocked Noble?

" _Where's our pokésupport?"_

The cavern rumbled and shook, though Jericho felt nothing. An explosion of sound surged down the corridor, making his ears ring. He thought he detected a faint sounds of a flute, even over the calamitous din.

There, at the end of the corridor, metal steps led upwards. The exit. Jericho ran forward, Noble and Puck shredding Unown left and right even as more came from behind.

The cavern again shook without shaking, almost making Jericho trip as he compensated for the illusion.

A blast of light seared the stairway from above, leaving the metal red and bubbling from the heat. Jericho stumbled back, arms raised to protect his face.

" _We're too late! It's here!"_

A massive silver head snaked down into the cavern, adorned by two bony blue crests jutting from above its eyes. Bullets ricocheted off rippling fields of alternity.

The creature looked at Jericho.

Eyes each almost as big as his head, full of unimaginable power and alien intent. Jericho fell to his knees, unable to look away despite the growing strain in his head.

The monster opened its jagged maw, forked pink tongue lolling out as alternity energy began to concentrate between its jaws. Brighter and brighter, approaching bullets started melting from the heat before they even struck, splashing liquid lead against the creature's reflection barrier.

" _Oh Arceus, oh Arceus, oh Arceus."_

" _Keep firing, damn you!"_

The creature breathed, the blinding energy enveloped everything, friend and foe alike, assuming either side was friends to it. Living flesh grew still, metal dulled, everything turned to grey, dead, stone. Even the endless swarms of Unown were gone, sigils burned into the walls.

Jericho knelt in the dreadful silence, the only sign that life had ever been in that place the wounds on his pokémon.

The only difference was that now he could read the hieroglyphics perfectly clearly. A single phrase, repeated over and over again.

 _REMAIN HERE FOR THE AGES._

Jericho bolted for the stairs.

* * *

"Kid!" Someone shook Jericho's shoulders. "Are you alright?"

Jericho tilted his head in confusion, focusing on a man with spiky black hair before him. From the lab coat, he was either part of the Alph science team or an avid electric type trainer. Nowadays it was probably both.

"I… fell?"

"Come on, we need to get you away from here. Prolonged exposure even this close to the facility can be dangerous."

The man half led, half pulled Jericho around a series of molten boulders. Jericho peered around to find Noble, faithfully following in his footsteps. After only a few minutes, reaching the entrance to a surprisingly modern looking facility. A plaque reading Ministry of Research: Unown hung beside the door.  
"Mister Unknown?"

"I see you're familiar with the Ministry's sense of humour." The scientist remarked drily, keying in a code into a number pad above the door handle.

"Did you get any readings, Foster?" A woman's voice came out the door before it was even part way open. "I haven't seen activity that high in months."

"Sorry, Aurea. We have a visitor, I found him wandering around the site. Looks like he's taken a spill. Lucky the fallout didn't fry his brain or something." Foster gestured to a seat as he walked into the air-conditioned office.

Jericho obediently obliged. It had been a long while since he'd sat on anything Noble settled by his feet, tail swishing.

"Oh, what a great companion you have. Leafeon isn't it?" Aurea, a fair haired young woman poked her head up from her computer. "You don't usually see those in Kanto, looks a lot brighter than they do on TV."

"Oh like you'd know." Foster spoke up from a buzzing machine in the corner of the room. "Aurea's working on her thesis on early pokémon design. She wouldn't have a clue about any pokémon more recent than '96."

Aurea made a face behind Foster's back. "So what were you doing in the ruins? You know they're restricted. Didn't you see the signs?"

Jericho shook his head. "I didn't see any signs. I was looking for someone."

"Oh?" Foster handed Jericho a steaming paper cup. "Sorry, it's just from the machine. We don't get many visitors down here. The caffeine should help clear your head, though."

"Thank you very much." Jericho blew on the indeterminate brown liquid. "Yeah, um, Cynthia? She said she was doing some research here, and I was wondering if I could get in contact with her."

Foster's brow furrowed. "Who are you, kid?"

"Oh, sorry. I'm-" Jericho sipped his drink. It turned out to be tea. "... An R.A. with Professor Elm."

"Oh! The Gold boy! Lyra's been calling about you for weeks now."

Weeks? Sweet Arceus.

"Well I'm sorry, but Ms. Karashina's not been on the site since last month." Foster trailed off, staring at the expression on Jericho's face. "But I do have her contact details. I can give her a call for you?"

"That would be great!"

"Alright, hold on. Aurea, where-"  
"Letter by your monitor." Aurea went back to her work.

"I don't-"

"The one with the Wynaut print." She didn't look up.

"It's not- oh, I see it." Holding the sheet of paper in one hand, Foster tapped the number into his phone.

Or this was an incredibly elaborate scheme to call PokéSec. Jericho sipped his tea. It was too hot to have much flavour.

"Hello, Ms Karashina? Hello there, how are you?... Yes, we're fine. Some very interesting readings here lately." Foster nodded a few times, seemingly oblivious to Jericho's unblinking stare. "Anyway, I have a Research Assistant here wanting to talk to you?... Oh, you do know him? Shall I pass you over?"  
Jericho shuffled to the edge of his seat. What would he say? How would he say it? Could he even-  
"No? Alright… Okay… Yes, I'll pass that on… The readings? I'll send them to you. Bye."

Jericho shuffled back onto his feet again, staring down into his tea. Foster's feet approached.

"I'm afraid that she was too busy to keep on the phone, Gold. But she did say she was very interested to meet up with you to discuss how your new career is going. If you'll be in Azalea within the next few days, you could meet her there?"

"Oh… that'll… that'll be great. Thanks a lot."

Had something finally gone right for him?


	12. Living Happily With Pokémon

Rain spattered against the decorated windows of Azalea pokémart, a soothing, relaxing sound for anyone who wasn't actually outside in it getting wet.

And for the moment that included Jericho, which suited him absolutely fine. He'd had enough of rain to last him a lifetime at this point. Also caves.

And Zubats.

But mostly the rain.

But at least he was here in Azalea, no worse for wear beyond a few extra blisters.

Jericho stepped from one glass display case to the next, tapping his damp chin thoughtfully as he tried to decide what to buy. Since he had no idea where to find Cynthia, if she was even still here, there was a very real chance that he'd be heading back along Route 33 to try and find somewhere to sleep outside of town again.

It was a strange feeling to be shopping, let alone having the money to shop in the first place, but the Route Trainers that attacked him wherever he went routinely gambled some of their wages on matches. Pocket change, mostly, but it wasn't as though he had any opportunity to spend it. He slept rough, ate poorly, and even now in the store, he couldn't even open half of the cases. Official trainers could purchase pokéballs and, after going through official testing matches against gyms, receive merit badges from the gyms that allowed them access to more restricted equipment.

His medical supplies at this point consisted mainly of "natural" berries picked along the routes and a few pieces he'd scavenged from a few dropped backpacks he'd chosen to believe had simply been dropped by their absent owners.

Now he thought about it, most of the restricted medicine involved treating things that disabled or debilitated a pokémon beyond the capacity of a simple alternity infusion to cure. Or in other words, those perfect for quickly shutting down a trainer's pokémon so an arrest could be made.

Jericho bit his lip, grabbing a folded rain poncho and dropping it into a pile of cheap snacks, desirable primarily because they weren't badly cooked Magikarp, and what medical supplies were freely available even to lowly provisionals. Something nudged his leg.

"What do you want, Squish?"

The odd little blue hominid, its froglike face appearing to be locked into a perpetual grin from the white teethlike markings on its bottom lip and bright orange venom sacs for cheeks, nudged him again with a three fingered black hand.

"No I'm not getting you one as well. It wouldn't fit you anyway,"

Squish let out a plaintive croak, nudging him again.

"Why would you even need one anyway? You like the rain."

Squish licked his eyeball and turned away in a huff. Jericho had captured the Croagunk back on Route 33. More out of frustration than requirement, as the squat little thing's injuries simply regenerated when wet.

That was three balls out of five expended, Puck was now one of his highest level pokémon, and the egg he was supposed to deliver by 6… Well that was still in his pokégear, and he still wasn't sure exactly how long he'd spent in the ruins of Alph. Thinking about that still gave him the chills.

All in all, he was forced to admit that he was possibly the worst research assistant ever. At least the egg was still intact, according to his pokégear at least... Then again, his _pokégear_ was cracked…

Jericho sighed, hauling his groceries to the counter. The two clerks ignored him, which suited him fine. The pokémart was linked to the League, like most places nowadays. He swiped his pokégear, the contents of the basket vanished into his pack.

"Thank you for shopping at Pokémart!"  
Jericho ignored them in turn as he headed back to the door, pulling the poncho from his pack and over his head, backpack and all. Rain pattered his hood as Squish scampered out into the rain, splashing through muddy puddles with a joyous croak.

"Told you so." Jericho muttered to himself, peering through the rain.

Like most "towns" nowadays, Azalea was a pitiful place. A few rustic houses scattered against a dark dark backdrop of trees that was Ilex Forest, a partially controlled area that had once been part of route 34 but nowadays held far more in common with the untamed wildlands on either side.

And at the centre of town, thankfully with its entrance facing away from the mart and the pokécentre, was Bugsy's bug gym, home to the majority of the town's permanent population and resident defence force.

Hopefully Cynthia wasn't in there.

Jericho turned towards the pokécentre, the only other building in town that didn't look like it might fall down with or without the rain.

Worst case, he could sneak in and heal his pokémon, look around for Cynthia and come back when things were quieter. Possibly even brave asking around for some gossip. A region champion should be fairly noticeable, right? He pulled his hood down and pushed inside. This would be-

"Mister Gold!"

Jericho rubbed the back of his head where he'd jumped back into the door and peered around the crowded pokécentre. Cynthia waved at him from a table, wearing the same fur trimmed black outfit as when he'd first seen her.

"Over here, Mister Gold, I've been waiting for you!" Cynthia called again, loudly enough to turn a few curious heads.

Jericho winced, scurrying towards the table with his head down. The champion laughed, a melodic and above all loud sound that once again cut across the conversations of the crowded pokécentre.

"Relax, Mister Gold." Cynthia flicked her hair over her shoulder. "You're still a nobody. The League has far bigger things to worry about than one boy and his Eevee." She chuckled. "Besides, you're much taller in the rumours."

Jericho flinched, leaving his poncho hood high regardless as he settled into a minimally padded chair, heart in his stomach.

"So you already know then?"

"Of course. I did say I was expecting big things from you, but so soon was beyond my expectation. How is your "stolen" pet, by the way?" Cynthia glanced at Squish hopping impatiently from foot to foot by Jericho's leg.

Jericho thumbed his wrist, and the toxic pokémon switched out. If the scientists at Alph were any indication, Leafeon were uncommon enough, and Noble's colouration similar enough, that it was unlikely that a layman could identify him from it. Of course Cynthia might be right, and his paranoia all for nothing.

"Ah, a Leafeon?" Cynthia raised an eyebrow. "Interesting choice." She reached out a hand to scratch Noble behind an ear. He stared back at her blankly, tail swishing slowly.

"Well I can see you've taken good care of him. And since I already know why you're here, for your information I registered the trade with the League already. If you can talk your way out of four counts of assault then I imagine you can head home, if you like. I know I plan to."

"Really?" Jericho felt a surge of almost hope. Without the theft charge, his chances had just improved dramatically, however grim they might still be. "Thank you so much!"

Cynthia waved airily, pushing herself away from the table. "Of course, if I were you, I might consider talking to Kurt over on the west side of town. He's a pokéball specialist. He might be able to replace the capture mechanism in those balls of yours that might raise… "questions", even after they were formatted." She started walking towards the door. "Of course it's up to you, what's the sentence in Johto for poaching again?"

Jericho grimaced. She really had been keeping track of him somehow… and she was totally right. With his public confrontation with Numlock in Violet, they'd surely be checking his balls, and far from interested in giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"Oh, Mister Gold?" Cynthia called from the entrance, Jericho perked up. "I left a gift for you on the PC. You didn't already have a starter, right?"

She left the building before he could reply. A black blur swept past the rain spattered glass door, taking her with it.

Jericho dropped his forehead onto the table with a groan. She hadn't filled out the starter forms for him, had she? It wasn't starter fraud if he claimed ignorance, right?

One of the balls on his wrist flashed, signalling one of his pokémon was evolving, somehow.  
Jericho frowned. Was there a pokémon that evolved off its trainer's misery? He tapped the ball, and the pokémon egg he'd been tasked to carry replaced Noble on the floor beside him. Jericho picked it up hurriedly, feeling it jerk and kick beneath his hands.

Oh no.

Cracks crisscrossed the top of the egg.

Oh no no no.

A spiky yellow head cracked forth with a happy trill. A mostly formless feathered face peering at him with black button eyes.

Jericho held his head in his hands as a few nearby trainers broke into polite applause.

He really was the worst research assistant ever.


	13. You're Not Joking?

_Author's Note: Just an FYI to those as mind either way, there's likely to be a delay in any future chapters being released, since I'll be both moving house and going on paternity leave within the next few weeks._

* * *

"Hi, Cynthia Karashina recommended you, she said you'd be able to reset the capture circuits on my pokéballs? They have… uh… sentimental value."

His conversation partner, the little hatchling Togepi he'd named Duty, chirped happily a foot from his face.

"Hm. Yeah, I dunno. Can I just drop a league champion's name like that? Maybe I should just say you're a modified companion ball?"

Duty chirped again, flapping her tiny, formless wings. She was still more than half covered in shell and showing no particular sign of being motivated to change that.

"Yeah, well I don't know if you're old enough to trust your opinion." Jericho grunted, lowering the newborn to carry under one arm as he approached the closed shop's door. A dripping sign adorned the wall alongside, painted in haphazard black lettering.

 _Kurt's Custom Pokéballs. We work for apricorns!_

The door slammed open while he was reading, and an elderly man with long grey hair stomped out, a tiny crafting hammer in one hand. Jericho stared at him. The level of clearance needed for even such a tiny tool must be phenomenal. Also he appeared to be wearing a blue bathrobe and slippers.

"Hm? Who are you?" The man raised a wild eyebrow, seemingly oblivious to the pouring rain

"I-"

"Eh? You want me to make some Balls? Sorry, but that'll have to wait."

"Why-"

"Anyway, they're back, and they're at the well! I'm going to go give them a lesson in pain! Hang on, Slowpokes! Old Kurt is on his way!"

Jericho stared open mouthed after the old man as he charged off towards the pokécentre with surprising speed.

"Sorry about that." A mumbled apology came from beside him.

Jericho peered around, then down to see a small girl at the doorway, half hidden behind the door..

"You want to talk to my grandpa, don't you?" She twisted one of her twin ponytails between her fingers.

"Um, yeah. I had some business with him. What was that about Slowpokes?"

"Um… Grandpa said some bad people are at Slowpoke Well taking our tails."

Jericho scratched Duty's head thoughtfully. Slowpokes were a dull-witted pokémon that looked like a hippopotamus and an axolotl had a baby. They fished for pokémon using the sweet tasting sap secreted from its tail as a fishing lure.

Their ability to regrow their tail and sedentary nature had created something of an industry around harvesting them as a renewable food source. It was small wonder that the old man was worked up if someone was poaching tails, it was one of Azalea's primary exports nowadays.

"Uh…" The girl fidgeted, still clinging to the door. "Mister, can you go help my grandpa? The last time he got like this he hurt his back and couldn't walk for a week."

Jericho bit his lip thoughtfully. While battling petty pokémon rustlers wasn't exactly keeping a low profile, it wasn't that likely to merit the gym's intervention either, and if the old man hurt himself or got killed...

"Yeah, sure thing."

* * *

"For a guy in a dressing gown he can sure run pretty fast."

Jericho squinted down into the depths of the town well, a short walk outside of town. Somehow Kurt had simply vanished from sight by the time Jericho had rounded the corner of the pokécentre, and he'd not seen any sign of him all the way here.

Or any sign now he was here, for that matter. Corroded metal rungs protruded from the stone wall all the way down into the depths, but he couldn't see any water down there, or any way of getting water out if there had been.

That presented his first problem. He'd need two hands to descend the slippery ladder if he didn't want to slip and land on his back, and even Squish would probably have trouble climbing the human size ladder on his own. There was a short term recall command, but heading into a Slowpoke lair without a pokémon ready didn't sound sensible, and if it recalled while he was still on the ladder... Jericho tapped his lips in thought before pressing a ball at his wrist. A slender blue serpent coiled around his arm where previously his arm had coiled around Duty.

"Hope, coil around my shoulders okay? And try not to crush me to death."

The Dratini gave Jericho's arm a slight squeeze before looping around his backpack and shoulders, he was surprisingly light for how long he was.

"Here goes nothing." Jericho swallowed, swinging one leg over the side of the well and clambering down into the darkness. Sneakers on the wet metal rang out softly to accompany the dripping water that echoed up from below.

Sooner than he expected, Jericho splashed onto the bottom of the well, hard, if slippery, rock between his feet. It was spacious down here, with a hole in the wall with occasional flashes of light coming from deeper within. Jericho squinted to see in the little light that made it down from the above. A shape bobbed mostly submerged in a pool of water.

"... Kurt?" Jericho edged closer. Was that blood? Why didn't the pokémart even sell _flashlights_?

The figure splashed around in the water with a low moan.

"Easy, there. Let me help you." Jericho knelt alongside, navigating Hope's coils to find the out port of his backpack.

The figures head opened into a gaping yawn. Jericho pulled back with a surprised yell as it clamped down where his leg had been. Hope hissed balefully from by his ear and engulfed the creature's skull with a stream of purple flame. It slumped back into the water with a distressed lowing before falling still, bobbing up to the surface.

A Slowpoke. The blood had been oozing from the stump where its tail had been.

A rattling sound accompanied a sibilant hiss behind him made Jericho freeze. A the man's voice came from behind him.

"I told you I heard something."

A second voice, a woman's this time. "Alright, kid, hands away from the gear and turn around slowly. And no funny stuff, the first words out of your mouth that sound like an order are going to be your last."

"Okay, I don't want any trouble." Jericho raised his hands and turned to face the speakers. Four dark clothed trainers They had pokemon deployed already, an Ekans, a massive purple rattlesnake analogue with a yellow ring around its neck, with two Rattata and a catlike Meowth.

"Go tell Proton we caught a snooper." The man who'd first spoken said to a woman with long pink hair. She nodded and vanished into the cave, taking the Meowth with her.

Jericho watched her leave. The Ekans was slightly bigger and heavier than Hope, but he could probably take it, at least long enough to call out… Did he even have anything that worked well against poison types? Or that could keep two or three pokémon off him at once _and_ their trainers?

Jericho looked past the pokémon to the trainers behind. While the black uniform was hard to make out in the gloom, a vibrant red letter 'R' on the chest was still clearly visible.

Team Rocket?

As far as Jericho remembered, Team Rocket had been a major Kantonian crime syndicate during the war, underground casinos, gun, and later, pokémon running, poaching, theft, embezzlement… After the war they'd been wiped out, almost single-handedly, by Red, shortly before he became champion of the Kanto League.

"What the hell are you doing here, kid? You with the gym?" The man's features were obscured beneath the shadow of his cap.

"No! I was just looking for some old man. I thought he was down here." Jericho wasn't sure if the uniform was intended seriously, or if they were dressing up for the intimidation factor of a dead group wiped out by an eleven year old, but in either case they were clearly unhinged and not to be taken lightly.

Unfortunately that was apparently the wrong answer. The man's voice raised in irritation.

"What?! You mean old Kurt? He dropped down here _last_ time we were working and almost got himself eaten by a Slowpoke! That does it. You're coming to see the boss."

The Rattata snapped at his heels, herding Jericho forward and deeper into the cavern while the "Rocketeers" kept a wide berth. Probably more from the Dratini around his neck than from him, he had to admit. Even if they hadn't seen the attack and thought it was a companion model, unable to access its alternity pocket, a pokémon could still give a nasty bite.

Quickly, the gloom gave way to to a chamber brightly lit by glowing orbs bobbing overhead. Stalagmites… Or stalactites, he couldn't remember which was which, dripped from above onto stone banks and a quick flowing underground stream with metal bars where it entered and left the cavern, presumably to keep the Slowpokes from leaving.

Slowpokes dopily stood around, or those that still had tails trailed them in an underground stream, largely oblivious to black suited individuals walking between them. Tame Rattata attacked each in turn, severing the tails and moving on to the next while their trainer walked along behind them, scooping the tails into brown sacks.

"... Why not just catch them?" Jericho mused aloud.

"Eh?" The trainer with the Ekans turned his head. In the brighter conditions Jericho could make out that he was somewhere in his twenties, with a shock of neck length blue hair.

"If you caught one, couldn't you just cut off its tail as many times as you want?"

The man snorted. "I wish. Balls recall the tails too, or just break if the tail's too far away. Not a bad con in the old days though, before people got wise, you could make a few bucks selling the same tail so long as you weren't planning on sticking around."

"Nowadays nobody'll buy anything without putting it into an alternity trap first." Another man grunted, this one rough-faced and seemingly bald under his hat, a pale white scar visible down the back of his head.

"S-so uh… You really Team Rocket? I thought you… uh… broke up." Jericho glanced around. More than a few of the others had taken notice of him, and the pink-haired woman was visible at the far end of the cave, where they appeared to be taking him.

"Hmph." 'Ekans' made a face and turned away to navigate around a Slowpoke lapping the blood from its own tail stump. "Yeah, the boss broke us up a few years ago, but we continued our activities underground." He waved to the cave around them, laughing at his own joke. "Anyway, shut up and don't say anything stupid in front of Proton. You don't want to make him angry."

Jericho nodded silently, still glancing around. There was a passageway off on one side of the cave, near the woman and the one he assumed to be "Proton", but it had been blocked off by a boulder wider and taller than him. The gaps between the sides looked too small to squeeze through. There was no sign of Kurt anywhere, either.

"Well, well, well. Who have we got here?" Proton was a heavily built man with the same uniform as the other Rocketeers, but with long white boots and gloves. His green hair had been heavily styled into two points reminiscent of a bull's horns. Jericho could smell the acrid smell of whatever he'd used to shape it from where he stood, even over the musky Slowpoke.

"Found him at the entrance, Sir." 'Ekans' stiffened to attention, almost saluting before aborting half way. "Said he was looking for that Kurt guy who was here last time." Ekans gestured at him dismissively. "Looks like a Leaguer."

Proton sneered down at Jericho, a pokéball in one bloodstained hand, a still bleeding Slowpoke tail held between his teeth.

"So you thought you could interfere with our business, eh? Well big mistake. I'm Proton, the scariest guy in Team Rocket. What's your name, kid?"

"J-Jericho Gold."

Proton stared at him, lips moving in silence. Finally he burst out laughing.

"Wait a minute, I've heard of you! Big bust up in Violet, right?"  
"Uh… yeah." Jericho answered, somewhat taken aback. Of all the people to get recognised by?

"I'd heard you were taller. Did you really jump off Sprout Tower?"

"Well… Not all at once."

"Hah, crazy guy like you might have what it takes to join our outfit. You got balls, Gold?"

"Uh, yeah? Right here." Jericho holds up his pokégear with a raised eyebrow.

"Hah! I like you, kid. Alright, show me what you got. James, lend me your team."

The trainer with the Ekans, James, nodded curtly. "Yes, Sir!"

Jericho was vaguely aware of the other Rocket Trainers wandering towards them, forming a loose circle. James pulled two pokéballs from his belt before handing it directly to Proton, completely unphased at sharing his pokémon.

"Give us a good show, kid." James pocketed the balls the balls he removed, recalling his Ekans as he pulled back into the crowd that was forming.

Jericho looked back to Proton, who had draped the belt over one shoulder, one ball already raised. A crackling sphere the same colour as the pokéball buzzing out, as it was designed to. Voltorbs like that had been used as grenades and booby traps during the war, thanks to having the inclination to self-detonate and an array of debilitating electrical attacks.

Jericho jabbed at his wrist hurriedly, Hope might be resistant to electrical shocks but there was no way the slender creature could handle an explosion. Noble dropped to the floor moments before being struck by a paralysing spark of electricity that made his fur stand on end.

At least it hadn't detonated. Jericho tapped in a quick command as Noble weathered a second bolt of electricity, this one brighter and more deadly. With a flick of his tail, the Leafeon retorted with a salvo of seeds pulled directly from his Alternity pocket. Three holes appeared on the side of the Voltorb and it detonated harmlessly in the air. Proton snorted, wordlessly calling forth a second pokémon, a Zubat. Noble staggered towards it with all the speed it could muster, but the eyeless bat fluttered too fast, clamping its fangs into his Leafeon clamped his down on it, tearing a wing from its body and its body from his leg with a trickle of dark green blood. Cheers and hoots erupted from the Rocket gangers around him, Jericho didn't know if it was for him, or because Noble was injured. Didn't matter, Proton was selecting his next pokémon with theatrical flair.

It emerged above where Noble had flung the Zubat, another sphere, though too big to be a Voltorb, and its purple surface covered with craterous protrusions from which billowed a thick yellow gas.

Another "designed" pokémon, the Koffing sported a crude skull and crossbones beneath its eyes and mouth, and like the Voltorb, it was potentially explosive, intended to flush out entrenched forces or simply detonate.

And Poison types were deadly against Grass types like Noble, while if it detonated… Jericho jabbed his gear, and Puck replaced Noble just before the Koffing opened its mouth, engulfing the Quilava in a stream of burning fire. Jericho winced, shielding his face from the heat with his hand.

The flame ended. Puck shook her head violently, but was little the worse for wear. While the Koffing's flamethrower was powerful, it had little impact against a fire type. Puck retaliated with a burst of flame from her own forehead font, igniting the gas seeping from the Koffing. Proton's nostrils flared, and he recalled the Koffing, still flaming, to replace it with a rotund cactus pokémon. A… Cacnea? It stood atop two enlarged spikes, its thorny arms stretched.

"Seriously?" Proton shot a dirty look over at James.

"Sorry, Sir." The blue haired man shrugged. Puck yelped as the Cacnea sucker punched it during the exchange, but moments later the grass type was a smouldering ruin on the cave floor.

The cave was silent, all eyes on Proton as the big man glowered at Puck as though he might take to the ring himself.

Finally he started laughing again, tossing the belt back to James, who only looked mildly put out as he reholstered his remaining pokéballs.

"Not bad, kid! I didn't see that coming." He grinned, one of his teeth was solid silver. "You've earned my respect, so what do you say? Want to be a part of our operation?"

Jericho opened his mouth, more out of uncertainty than a desire to answer. Obviously he had no desire to become an outlaw, considering he was a few pokéballs from salvation, but how would they react to him saying no? He was even more heavily outnumbered now than before, and now he was running with an injured team.

Damnit.

"S-" His reply was cut off by a bellowing voice that echoed across the cave.

"Hold it right there!"

Kurt, still clad in his dressing gown, stood at the entrance to the cave, his bearlike Ursaring already deployed. He was flanked by a dozen trainers, most of whom Jericho had seen in the pokécentre, and one he hadn't.

Troy.


	14. A Lesson in Pain

The cavern was in chaos.

Trainer fought trainer and aggravated Slowpokes alike, beams and streams of phased alternity crackled and splashed through the air, the floor trembled with localised aftershocks, and the air grew thick with toxic smoke.

Jericho barely noticed. There was a tunnel of clarity between him and the red-headed teenager staring at him with contempt.

"Is it true?" Troy swept through the air with his pokégear. "Has Team Rocket really returned? Have you _joined_ them?"

"Numlock." His own voice felt distant past his pounding heart. Lightning tore into a black feathered bird, dropping it with a sizzling splash into the river.

Jericho kept walking towards Troy.

"Quit ignoring me!"  
A heavy set blue and yellow reptile burst from the water, a Slowpoke gnawing on its tail. The evolved form of Totodile. It's bellowing roar was interrupted by a bolt of electricity directly through its skull. The inside of its maw flashed brightly and it slumped to the floor. A ghost rose in the place it fell, a Gastly, its toxic fumes blending into the cloying smog of the cavern.

"Whatever. I'm taking you down first, Bug, then Team Rocket is next!"

"Squish." Jericho tapped in the command. Numlock was replaced by the darting froglet just in time for him to be engulfed in a grim haze of darkness, infecting the pokémon's very alternity pocket. Squish tumbled forward before feinting upwards, sending a shadow infused punch into the core of the Gastly and turning that, too, into fine mist. Squish writhed in pain as the corruption manifested in extensive damage. Jericho didn't slow down. Barely fifteen feet separated them now.

Troy growled, and a frail yellow and brown hominid appeared, radiating with psychic power as it moved its head to follow Squish, despite both eyes being closed.

An Abra. Devastatingly effective against both of Squish's types. Jericho slapped at his gear. Nautical appeared and hunched forwards, a wave of psychic force washing over her before she stomped forward, jaws clamping down. There was a crack, and the Abra's body fell limply to the floor, its head a moment after.

"Humph." Troy sneered. "Starter fraud too? You only won because-"  
"Shut up!" Jericho yelled over him and the chaos all around them. "You ruined my life! _Twice_! Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"What, you think you're so big and tough now you're in a group?" Troy's scowl turned even darker. "Because you broke the law? You Team Rocket are all the same. Alone, you're _weak_. And I _hate_ the weak."

Jericho lunged forward, fist raised. Troy swept his attack aside and retaliated with a backhanded slap, the lumpy metal surface of his pokégear cracked into Jericho's jaw, and the world lurched sideways.

"Hey!" A voice shouted from nearby.

"Tch. I'll get you next time you don't have your friends around, Bug."

Troy raised his pokégear, a black and yellow blur crackling into the corner of Jericho's vision. By the time he'd turned to look, the pokémon had erupted with the same blinding flash the Elder's Cherubi had used.

Jericho stumbled back, clutching his face, but a steadying hand grabbed his shoulder. He looked up blearily to see the blue haired James peering down at him.

"You alright, kid? Little guy like you probably should let his pokémon do the talking."

Jericho nodded mutely, rubbing his jaw. Troy was halfway across the cavern, a few Rocket trainers in half-hearted pursuit. James stared after them with a frown.

"Looks like we're blasting off again. He'll bring the gym down on us for sure."

All around the cave, League trainers were being corralled deeper into the cave. Kurt, clutching his spine, yelled abuse in every direction from where he was pressed up against the wall. Jericho grimaced.

"Yeah, he got away." James grunted, recalling a blood spattered Meowth as one of Troy's pursuers whistled from the cavern entrance. "Harvest was almost done anyway at least. So what about you, kid? You coming with us?"

Jericho winced. He'd almost forgotten their "invitation". He was in even worse a situation than before.

"I… uh… sorry. I've got t-to talk to… someone first?" That someone was still hurling baleful invectives after the departing grunts.

James shrugged. "Alright, I'll let the boss down easy for you. Wouldn't stick around long if I were you, though. It's going to get pretty hot around here pretty soon."

James clapped him on the shoulder and walked away without waiting for a reply. Above, the glowing orbs winked out one by one as their owners recalled them, until at last the cave plunged into darkness, punctuated only by the lowing of Slowpoke and the swearing Kurt.

"... Puck." The blaze of the Quilava's fonts illuminated the cave as she replaced Nautical at his side.

Here went nothing. Jericho gritted his aching jaw as he walked towards Kurt, all eyes on him as he approached, picking his way between fallen pokémon.

"H-hi, your granddaughter sent me to-"

Spit arced through the air, spattering against the front of his poncho.

"You're not going to get anything out of me, Rocket scum!" Kurt growled at him. "Bugsy will deal with you, you'll never get away!"

A chorus of angry agreement broke out from the defeated trainers. Jericho stepped back, hands raised.

Of course. The entire cavern must have seen him fighting alongside Team Rocket, and Troy was probably giving his description at the gym even now. Did he time to even try to explain?

"...Puck!"

Jericho turned and ran.


	15. Lost and all alone

Left or right?

Jericho leant against a tree, panting. There was little difference between either path. Ilex Forest was a maze of mud and weeds, struggling to grow beneath the thick canopy that kept the forest floor in a perpetual green twilight. Giant webs hung between trees, and wild pokémon roamed freely in the gloom, the threat of ambush constant. It was only a matter of time before nature claimed the remains of this route as well.

At least the gamble so far had paid off. He'd made it as far as the pokécentre before Bugsy's gym trainers, a group of serious looking men and women seemingly oblivious to the rain, had emerged en masse from the gym, heading purposefully the way he'd just been. He'd delayed just long enough to shout through Kurt's door that the girl's grandpa was alright before bolting for the woods.

Maybe he should have just given up after all? Who knows? Orre might be nice at this time of year. Jericho straightened, picking a path at random and moved on. They were both more or less heading north anyway. Noble padded alongside, his vibrant coat looking out of place among the muted greens of the forest as he flicked his ears this way and that, scouting for movement.

"My, have you lost your way?"

Jericho spun around, hand on his pokégear. A young woman with a white painted face stood at the side of the path, clad in the ornate kimono of a traditional Johtonese dancer, pristine despite the muck and snagging branches all around them.

"If so, I am sorry, but I appear to have lost my way as well." The kimono lady smiled and shrugged, twirling a bamboo umbrella with a spray of water. "Perhaps we could find our way together?"

"W-w-well-" Jericho stammered into silence as Noble trotted towards the woman, tail swishing from side to side. "Noble! Noble!"

"Oh my, a most unusual companion pokémon. It appears that he likes me." The lady lowered a hand for the Leafeon to nuzzle against.

"Sorry, he doesn't usually get along with strangers."

"Then let us not be strangers, I am Naoko, pleased to make your acquaintance."  
"... Jericho." When the woman didn't react to the name, he dropped his hand from his pokégear.

"Well, Mister Jericho," Naoko smiled once more, sending another shower of droplets from her umbrella. "Shall we be off?"

The pair walked on in more or less silence, at least on Jericho's part, muttering commands to Noble to deal with attacking wilds while the woman, or possibly girl, but it was hard to tell through the makeup, chattered pleasantly on as though she was at a tea party rather than the dark and hostile wilderness they traversed.

Thankfully she didn't mention anything about Noble. Maybe she wasn't familiar with pokémon? Even in the modern day and age there had to be people who didn't understand basic technology? But why was someone with no pokémon out here in the-

"Mister Jericho?"  
"Huh? Sorry?" Jericho peered up into Naoko's inquisitive face.

"I was asking where you were headed after making your way through these woods?"

"I don't really know." Jericho sighed. "I thought I'd be heading home by now, but everything keeps going wrong."

His anonymity before the League that Cynthia had talked about had probably vanished the moment Troy had shown up for a hat trick on ruining his life. He was lucky he hadn't been taken in by Azalea's gym trainers already.

"Ah, I understand. I get lost quite often myself, and sometimes it is only with the help of someone else that I find my way."  
Jericho winced. And who could help him now? Kurt was out of the question. Cynthia already had, and she was long gone now. The professor? Considering how badly he'd failed on all three tasks, Elm would probably dunk him into New Bark Lake himself, let the Tentacruel sort him out.

"Well... I can at least help you get home, I guess." Jericho looked around as they stepped into a clearing. Most of the paths leading on were blocked by thick pokémon webs woven around fallen timber.

"That is very kind of you, Mister Gold. Perhaps you have not lost your way so badly after all?"

He'd never told her that name.

Jericho snapped his head around, but Naoko the kimono girl was nowhere to be seen, replaced by more webs that hadn't been there before.

A sneering, childish voice came from behind Jericho.

"Somebody _always_ runs into Ilex."


End file.
